Run a war room session

Goal

Start a focused war room session in Slack when inbound volume or SLA risk needs live coordination, session controls on a root thread, and optional recap summaries during or after an incident.

When to use this

Use a war room when normal inbox triage is not enough: viral posts, outage-related mentions, coordinated campaigns gone wrong, or SLA breaches that need a single channel and live metrics.

War room requires the Scale plan. Team and lower plans see an upgrade path when they try to open war room from the Engage work center card.

Choose Pause when auto-refresh would distract the channel during a live discussion. Choose Refresh when you need updated metrics on demand. Choose Stop when the incident is over and the session should close.

Before you begin

Confirm these requirements:

• Plan: War room requires the Scale plan. Free, Starter, and Team plans do not include war room. See Plan comparison for details.
• Brand context: Select the active brand before you start a session. Sessions and recaps scope to that brand.
• Target channel: Know which Slack channel should host the war room root message. You choose the channel in the start modal.
• Session name and scope: Prepare a short session name and the scope fields the start modal asks for so submit validation passes on the first try.

The Engage work center card exposes war room when your plan includes it. If the card shows an upgrade prompt, your organization needs Scale before you can start a session.

Steps

Start a session

1. Open /social and switch to Engage.
2. Search for Incident Mode in the command palette, or open War Room from the Engage work center card when it appears.
3. Complete the start modal with the session name, channel, and scope fields Slack asks for.
4. Submit the modal.

Slash Social validates required fields, creates the session, and posts a root message in the target channel with session controls.

Manage an active session

Use the buttons on the war room root message:

Pause and resume follow the session state: only valid transitions are offered on the root message. View details opens a modal with session metrics without stopping the session.

Stopping the session updates the root message to a stopped state. You cannot resume a stopped session; start a new session if another incident begins later.

Get a recap during or after an incident

1. Open /social and search for recap in the command palette.
2. Run the recap action to generate a private Slack summary for the active brand.
3. On the recap message, use Catch up, Dismiss, or Settings to adjust how recaps behave.

Recaps summarize recent social activity for the brand you have selected. Dismiss clears the ephemeral recap when you are done. Settings opens recap preferences when you need to change delivery behavior.

Mirror inbound conversations (automatic)

Active war room sessions can match inbound conversations by keyword and hashtag rules defined at session start. Matching conversations mirror into the session channel so the team sees new volume without refreshing the inbox manually. If expected mentions do not appear, confirm the session is running (not paused or stopped) and that the conversation text matches session scope.

Success criteria

You have finished this workflow when:

• The target channel shows a war room root message with working Pause, Resume, Refresh, View details, and Stop actions.
• Session metrics update after Refresh or resume from pause.
• Stop updates the root message to a stopped state and ends auto-refresh.
• A recap action delivers a private summary for the active brand, and dismiss or settings actions respond as expected.
• Inbound conversations that match session rules appear in the war room channel while the session is active.

Troubleshooting

War Room card shows an upgrade prompt

War room requires the Scale plan. Confirm billing with your admin or review Plan comparison.

Start modal submit fails

Fill every required field in the start modal: session name, channel, and scope. Empty or invalid values block session creation.

Root message has no controls

Confirm submit completed successfully. If the modal closed with an error, reopen war room from Engage and start again. Check that the bot can post in the channel you selected.

Pause or Resume is unavailable

The button matrix depends on session state. A stopped session cannot resume; start a new session. If the session should be active but controls look wrong, choose Refresh once, then retry.

Recap does not appear

Confirm the active brand matches the incident you are reviewing. Run the recap action again from /social command palette search. Check Slack notification settings if you expect a DM delivery path.

Matching conversations do not mirror into the channel

Verify the session is not paused or stopped. Confirm keywords and hashtags in the session scope match the inbound message text. Heavy volume may batch briefly before mirror posts appear.

For how war room fits alongside inbox SLA targets, read Inbox, conversations, and SLA.

Related docs

• Inbox, conversations, and SLA
• Plan comparison