Chat apps: CostGlass in Slack and Microsoft Teams
Ask the CostGlass Agent about your costs from Slack or Microsoft Teams: connect a workspace, link your account, change things with Confirm and post a weekly digest.
Chat apps: CostGlass in Slack and Microsoft Teams
Ask the CostGlass Agent about your cloud costs without leaving Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Message the CostGlass app, or mention it in a channel, and it answers with your own cost data.
- It answers as you. Each person links their own CostGlass sign-in, so the answer uses that person's role, plan and hierarchy scope.
- Replies are private to the person who asked. They can choose to share an answer to the channel.
- By default it can only read. An Owner or Admin can allow budgets, saved views and schedules to be set up from chat, and every change needs a Confirm press first.
- It speaks English, French, German and Spanish.
- Your organisation is on the Growth plan or above.
- You are an Owner or Admin of your CostGlass organisation (to connect a workspace).
- You can add apps to your Slack workspace or Microsoft Teams tenant, or you know who can.
- Some cost data is already connected, otherwise there is nothing to answer from.
How it works
Connecting a workspace tells CostGlass which Slack workspace or Teams tenant belongs to your organisation. A workspace can belong to one organisation only.
Connecting does not give anyone access to your data. Each person then links their own CostGlass account once. After that, every question is answered with that person's own access, never with a shared bot identity.
Where replies appear
- In a direct message, the reply is in the same direct message.
- When you mention the app in a Slack channel or use the slash command, the reply is visible only to you.
- In a Teams channel or group chat, the answer arrives in a private one-to-one chat with you, and the channel only sees a short note that you were answered.
How answers are checked
The agent looks up your data with read-only tools and then writes a short answer. Any money amount in the answer must appear in the data it looked up. If it does not, you get the measured results only, with a note that the written answer could not be verified.
Connect Slack
Connect Microsoft Teams
Link your own account
Every person who wants to ask questions links their account once.
The link is valid for 15 minutes. If it expires, message the app again for a new one. To remove the link later, use Unlink me on the same page.
Ask a question
- Send a direct message to the app.
- Mention the app in a channel it has been invited to, followed by your question.
- In Slack you can also type the /costglass command followed by your question.
Some examples of questions you can ask:
- Why did our AWS cost go up last week?
- What are our biggest savings right now?
- How are our budgets doing this month?
- Are there any open anomalies?
Share an answer
Each reply in a channel includes Share to channel. Only the person who asked can press it. The shared post says whose CostGlass view it shows, because it may differ from what others can see.
Changes from chat
By default the agent only reads. An Owner or Admin can turn on Changes from chat on the workspace card.
- Only Owners and Admins can ask for changes.
- The agent can set up budgets, saved views and instance schedules.
- It never changes anything straight away. It shows a card describing the change, and nothing happens until the same person presses Confirm on that card.
- The change is checked again when you confirm, using your current role, and it is recorded in the audit log.
The wording of the change summary on a confirm card is written by CostGlass in English for now, even when the rest of the reply is in your language.
Weekly digest and anomaly posts
CostGlass can also post to a channel on its own. Nothing is posted until an Owner or Admin chooses a channel and switches a feed on.
- The weekly digest is posted on Monday morning (UTC).
- Each new high or critical anomaly is posted once, at most three per hour.
- Posts show the view of the admin who set them up, and say so. Anyone in the channel can read them.
- Each post has a button that answers the person who presses it, privately and as themselves.
The item lines inside the weekly digest are written by CostGlass in English for now.
Workspace settings
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Changes from chat | Lets Owners and Admins set up budgets, saved views and schedules from chat, each after a Confirm press. Off by default. |
| Post updates to a channel | The channel where the weekly digest and anomaly posts go. Empty turns proactive posts off. |
| Bot language | The language used for channel posts and for people who have not linked their account yet. |
| Pause | Stops CostGlass answering in this workspace until you press Resume. Links stay in place. |
| Channels | Limits Slack to certain channels. Empty allows every channel the app has been invited to. Direct messages always work. |
| Disconnect | Removes the workspace and everyone's links. People must link again if you reconnect. |
Languages
The app speaks English, French, German and Spanish. Buttons, notes, errors and the written answer all follow the language of the person who asked. People who have linked their account get the language they linked with. Everyone else gets the workspace's Bot language.
Limits and safety
- Each person can ask up to 20 questions an hour.
- Questions share your organisation's daily AI allowance with the other CostGlass AI features. It resets at 00:00 UTC.
- If a person is removed or disabled in CostGlass, the app stops answering them.
- Slack and Teams requests are verified before anything runs, and the workspace's access token is stored encrypted, never in the database.
- Questions are recorded in the audit log without the data in the answer.
If something does not work
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| Connect your CostGlass account to ask questions. | You have not linked your account yet. Press Connect CostGlass and confirm the link. |
| This link has expired or was already used. | Message the app again to get a new link. |
| The CostGlass Agent is available on the Growth plan and above. | Your organisation needs the Growth plan or above. |
| CostGlass is not enabled in this channel. | Ask in a direct message, or ask an admin to allow the channel under Channels. |
| You have reached the limit of 20 questions an hour. | Wait a while and ask again. |
| Your organisation has reached today's CostGlass AI limit. | The shared allowance resets at 00:00 UTC. |
| That Slack workspace is already connected to another organisation. | Disconnect it from the other organisation first. |