Every organization has a Shared Para alongside each person’s own Para. Mention it in a Slack or Microsoft Teams channel or group chat and it answers in the thread. Everything said to it there is visible to everyone in the organization, and anything you give it can be used by everyone who can mention it.
Which Para answers
| Where you write | Who answers | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Email, the Work page, or a Slack or Teams direct message | Your own Para | You. Your projects, plugins, and secrets apply. |
| A Slack or Teams channel or group chat with more than one person, when you @mention Para | The Shared Para | Everyone in your organization. Its own projects, plugins, and secrets apply. |
The Shared Para only answers when someone mentions it; it does not read or reply to a channel unprompted. Its first reply in a channel ends with a reminder that the conversation is visible to the organization. A bare mention in a thread picks up the request just above it, and earlier messages in the thread are included as context.
Start using it
Connect Slack
An organization owner or administrator installs Slack from Channels. If the app was installed before channel support, Channels shows Enable Para in channels; choose it to reauthorize the app.
Link your Slack account
Each person links their own Slack identity from Channels. Mentions from people who have not linked their account, and from Slack Connect guests outside your organization, do not start work.
Invite Para to the channel
Slack does not add the app to channels by itself. Invite the Para app to the channel, then @mention it with a request.
In Microsoft Teams, add Para to the team
Once Microsoft 365 has approved Para, a team owner adds it from Apps in Teams (Add to a team). Then @mention Para in any of that team’s channels. People link their Microsoft account from Channels, as in Slack.
What it can use
Open Shared Para in Settings to see its secrets, plugins, and the channels where it has been mentioned. Organization owners and administrators manage them; members can see what is set up, but not the values. Plugins and secrets you add on Plugins belong to your own Para and are not available to the Shared Para.
- Plugins: everyone who can mention the Shared Para acts with the credential an administrator connects. Use a service account or organization credential with the access you intend to share.
- Projects: the Shared Para has its own Desk and Personal. Named projects need the case.dev plugin installed on the Shared Para. Projects it creates are available to everyone in the organization.
- Skills: it follows Team skills deployed to the whole organization.
- Slack search: during a mention, it can search public Slack channels as the person who asked and cite the messages it found. If Channels says public-channel search needs an updated Slack permission, an administrator chooses Reinstall.
- Posting elsewhere: ask it to post or introduce itself in another channel and it posts there as Para. In Slack it can post in any public channel of the workspace; in Teams, in the channels of teams Para has been added to. It never posts to private, archived, or externally shared Slack channels.
Current limitations
- The Shared Para answers in Slack and Microsoft Teams channels and group chats, and by email at your organization’s
para@address. In Teams it does not read earlier messages in the thread, so include what it needs in the mention. - It does not create automations, join meetings, or publish artifacts. Ask your own Para for those.
- Its work is billed to the organization and labelled Shared Para on Usage.
- Keep private projects and personal credentials with your own Para. Anything you share in a channel or give the Shared Para is available to the whole organization.
- Each person’s own Para can draw on what the Shared Para has worked on. Nothing from your own Para’s conversations reaches the Shared Para.