Slack
Connect Slack to catch untracked time (timestamps only, never content) — and run your timer with /pp commands.
Connect Slack and ProjectPacer notices when you're working from the messages you send — so a stretch of Slack work with no timer running can surface as missed time to log, and a timer that ran long can be trimmed back to your last real activity. It's a signal source for AI suggestions, not a place you track time.
Slack is opt-in. Connecting a workspace turns the signal on so it starts working right away — and you can switch it off any time, on the Slack page or under Settings → AI suggestions. Turning it off deletes the timestamps already stored.
What it reads — and what it never does
ProjectPacer only ever looks at your own sent messages, and keeps just the timestamp and which channel — never the message text, never messages from anyone else, never who you're talking to.
- Timestamps only. That you sent a message at a time, not what it said.
- Only yours. We search your own sent messages; we never receive other people's.
- No content, ever. Nothing you or anyone typed is stored.
- Names, to help you map. So you can point any channel at a project, ProjectPacer can list your channels' names (public and private) — names only, never their messages. Only channels you're in: a private channel you're not a member of stays invisible, exactly as it does to you in Slack.
- DMs stay anonymous. A direct message never shows who it's with — it's listed only as "Direct message." (The one exception, on purpose: a Slack Connect conversation surfaces the external workspace, e.g. "Client A," so you can bill time to them — never the person.)
Optionally it also notes when you're active in Slack (handy for catching work from your phone) — again, just presence, never content. It checks every few minutes, so work from your phone still registers even with ProjectPacer nowhere in sight.
ProjectPacer requests read-only metadata — message timestamps and channel names — to draft time for review. It does not store the content of any message, and never reads anyone else's. Slack connects per person, so no one can switch it on for a teammate. If you administer the workspace, telling your team which integrations are in use is still your responsibility.
Connect a workspace
In Settings → Apps & integrations, find Slack and click Connect, then authorize it in Slack. That's it — connecting turns the signal on, so it starts catching untracked time straight away.
Changed your mind? Turn Slack off right on the Slack page, or under Settings → AI suggestions. Off means nothing is recorded, and the timestamps already stored are deleted.
People are in several Slacks. Connect as many workspaces as you want — each is separate, and you can map each to different work.
Slack is connected per person — you connect your own account, it sees only your own activity, and it doesn't affect or reveal anything to your teammates. It's not a workspace-wide install an admin flips on for everyone; each person connects (and can disconnect) their own.
Your sent-message activity refreshes on its own every few minutes; presence a touch faster. Impatient? Sync now on the Slack settings page pulls it immediately.
Map Slack to your projects
So missed time lands on the right project, you tell ProjectPacer what maps where. It picks the most specific rule that applies:
Map any channel you're in — public or private — to a project from the picker; channels you've recently posted in are pinned as recently active. Point #acme-build at the Acme project and messages there attribute to Acme.
If you share a channel with a client's workspace (Slack Connect), map that external workspace to their project — so a DM with Client A counts toward Client A, wherever it happens.
Set a workspace default for the common case: you're a guest in a client's Slack, so everything there is that client.
A channel mapping beats a Slack Connect mapping, which beats the workspace default. Anything unmapped still counts as untracked time — it just won't come pre-tagged with a project.
Run your timer from Slack — /pp
Once it's set up, control your own timer without leaving Slack. Every reply is private to you.
/pp start [project] [description]— start a timer. Lead with a project name to attach it:/pp start Acme fixing the header./pp stop— stop the running timer/pp pause·/pp resume/pp switch <project>— stop, then start on another project/pp log <duration> <description>— log a finished entry:/pp log 1h30m sprint planning(1h30m,90m,1:30, and1.5all work)/pp status— what's running ·/pp today— today's entries
Type these anywhere in Slack — a channel, or the direct message with ProjectPacer. Only you see the reply.
/pp acts on your own time, in a workspace you can track time in — the same permissions you have in the app apply. If your workspace uses timesheet approvals or locking, /pp (and Log all) won't write into a period you've already submitted, that's been approved, or that's locked; you'll get a note to ask an admin to reopen it.
Notifications
ProjectPacer can DM you as @ProjectPacer. Everything is off until you turn it on, under Settings → Notifications — where you choose the channel for each nudge (a Slack DM, a desktop notification, a browser alert, or any combination). See Notifications for the full channel grid; below is what the Slack DMs themselves look like. The four types:
- Things to review — meetings you haven't logged, and entries that look mis-attributed. Only the suggestion types you've kept on under AI suggestions are counted, so a type you switched off there won't surface here either. The DM names each meeting and the project it would land on, and Log all logs exactly that list — nothing you can't see. By default this is one roundup a day; flip on Nudge me during the day to get it intraday instead — batched a few hours after something's pending and never more than once every four hours, so it stays a couple of pings, not a stream.
- Running-timer nudge — when a timer looks left-on: it's been running but your connected sources have gone quiet, so it's probably still ticking after you stopped. The more sources agree, the sooner it arrives (and a live meeting holds it back) — the same call the in-app Overrun suggestion makes. Stop it right from the DM.
- Start-a-timer nudge — the opposite catch: you're clearly at your desk during working hours but no timer is running, so you're probably tracking nothing. Start timer begins a blank timer on your default workspace — pick the project in the app when you get a sec. It fires at most once per lull (never every few minutes), stays quiet outside your working hours and on weekends, and holds off if you've stopped a timer in the last half hour.
- Daily digest — a summary of what you tracked, at the end of your workday. It also closes out the day, surfacing anything still left to review no matter how recent — the catch-all the intraday nudges deliberately hold back on.
It only knows you're at your desk from your presence signals, and it reads them together rather than trusting any one. The desktop app treats waking or unlocking your computer as here and keeps you there until it idles, locks, or sleeps — a real working window, read as away the moment you step off. Slack presence adds the steady corroboration (it's polled while you're active, and catches mobile work too — turn Slack on under AI suggestions). With no presence signal connected there's nothing to read, so the nudge simply never fires; the more signals agree, the more sure it is — and it says so ("active in Slack and at your desk").
Quiet hours hold everything back overnight (10pm–7am by default), and each one has a Send a test so you can see it first. It won't nag: a digest arrives at most once a day, a running timer is nudged once, a start-a-timer nudge comes at most once every few hours, and a review item is DMed once and then never re-raised — you won't get the same suggestion two days running.
Quiet hours and the digest are read against your clock, using the time zone under Settings → Preferences — which also sets when your workday ends, and so when the digest arrives. If you haven't set a time zone, those hours are read in UTC and things can land at odd times.
A meeting that belongs to a project shared with you from another workspace isn't listed in the DM and isn't logged by Log all — log those from AI suggestions in the app, where your access to the other workspace is checked properly. Everything else works from Slack.
Turning it off
Disconnect a workspace any time from Settings → Apps & integrations → Slack — its mappings go with it, and your logged time is untouched. Turning the Slack source off under Settings → AI suggestions stops all recording and deletes the Slack timestamps already stored.
How signals like Slack turn into time you can review.