Connect Slack, Notion and Google Drive in ten minutes

Documents and conversations are the backbone of most answers, so Slack, Notion and Google Drive are the connectors teams set up first. All three read only what you point them at, and all three keep each person's access rules intact. This guide covers the choices you will be asked to make and how to confirm the first sync worked. The Free plan includes five connectors, which is enough for all three.

Before you connect

Decide who should do the setup. For Slack you need to be a workspace admin, or have an admin approve the request. For Google Drive and Notion you need an account that can see the content you want to include. A service account works too.

Also decide where to start. Pick the places where decisions are made rather than everything at once: a product channel, the support channel and the folder where contracts and specs live. You can add more later, and a smaller first sync finishes sooner.

Connect Slack, Google Drive and Notion

Start with Slack. The Slack connector lets Lanternfish read messages and threads, so an answer can cite a conversation as well as a document. It reads only the channels you choose, and only the channels each person belongs to can ever appear in their answers.

1. Open Settings, then Connectors, and choose Slack.

2. Select Connect and approve the Lanternfish app in the Slack window that opens.

3. Pick the channels to include. Public channels are listed automatically.

4. Choose how far back to read: 30 days, one year or everything.

5. Select Start sync. The connector shows a progress bar and a count of threads read.

Private channels and direct messages are never read unless a workspace admin adds them one by one. To stop reading a channel later, remove it from the list. Its messages disappear from new answers within a few minutes, and receipts that pointed to it show as unavailable.

Then connect your documents. For Google Drive you can connect a whole shared drive or a handful of folders. Docs, Sheets, Slides and PDFs are read, while images and videos are skipped. For Notion you choose the top-level pages or databases, and everything beneath them is included.

1. Open Settings, then Connectors, and choose Google Drive or Notion.

2. Sign in with an account that can see the content you want to include.

3. Select the shared drives, folders or pages to read. Use the search box to find them by name.

4. Review the file count shown under the list. The Team plan reads up to 50,000 files per connector.

5. Select Start sync. New and edited files appear in answers within about five minutes after that.

If a file you expect is missing, check that the account you connected can open it. A file that was shared by link only is not part of a drive or page tree, so add it by pasting its URL under Add a single file.

Check the first sync

Most workspaces finish the first sync in about ten minutes. A very busy workspace with years of history can take an hour, and you can ask questions while it runs, although answers will fill in as more of the history arrives.

When the progress bar reaches the end, ask one question you already know the answer to. Open the receipts and confirm they point to the right places. If something is missing, the cause is almost always the same: the connected account cannot open it, or the channel or folder was not selected. Both are quick to fix from the same Connectors screen, and a fix takes effect on the next sync.