---
title: Match employees to their Slack account (and the email fallback)
description: "A Slack message goes to a person. Illizeo therefore has to know which Slack account belongs to which employee — and what it does about the rest. - **Read**5 min - **Level**Intermediate - **Updated**September 2026 - **Module**Integrations & API ##…"
url: "https://illizeo.com/en/centre-aide/match-employees-to-their-slack-account/"
updated: "2026-10-16"
category: "Platform / Integrations & API"
---

# Match employees to their Slack account (and the email fallback)

A Slack message goes to a person. Illizeo therefore has to know which Slack account belongs to which employee — and what it does about the rest.

- **Read**5 min
- **Level**Intermediate
- **Updated**September 2026
- **Module**Integrations & API

## Why matching is needed

A Slack message goes to a *person*, not to an email address. Illizeo therefore has to know which Slack account belongs to which employee — and what to do about the employees it cannot place.

## Step by step

1. ### Run the automatic pass

   Automatic matching compares active employees to the members of your Slack workspace, using the email address Slack knows. The pass **writes nothing into Slack**: it is a read-only lookup followed by a local write of the account id.
2. ### Open the unmatched list

   Paginated and searchable by first name, last name or email. Each row states the fallback channel that applies to that employee today.
3. ### Match manually

   Enter the Slack account id. Illizeo **checks it against Slack before storing it**: an id that does not exist, is deactivated, or belongs to a bot is rejected there and then, rather than producing a send failure weeks later, far from its cause.
4. ### Unlink when needed

   The employee goes back to the email fallback. Nothing else changes, and their Slack account is untouched.

## Unmatched is not an error

An employee with no Slack account, an employee using a personal address in Slack, an external contractor invited as a guest: this is the normal course of things. Those employees keep receiving their notifications by email. The unmatched list is a work list, not a defect list.

## When the email fallback kicks in

| Situation | What happens |
| --- | --- |
| Employee never matched | Notification sent by email |
| Slack account deleted or deactivated since matching | Notification sent by email |
| Channel archived, or bot removed from the channel | Not posted to the channel, notification sent by email |
| Token revoked or scope missing | Notification sent by email *and* an alert to administrators |

In every one of these cases the message still goes out. Nothing is lost silently.

## What does not exist

Illizeo provisions no Slack account, invites nobody and deactivates nobody. There is no matching by file import, and no configurable matching rule (on name, department, a custom field…). An employee cannot match themselves.

## FAQ

   What does automatic matching rely on?

The email address Slack knows — hence the `users:read.email` scope requested at install time.

   Can an employee match themselves?

No. The screen sits behind the *Apps and connectors* admin permission: deciding which employee receives HR notifications in a third-party workspace is not self-service.

   What about Slack bots?

Rejected. Matching only accepts an active human account.

   What does an unmatched employee see?

Nothing in particular. They receive their notifications by email, exactly as before the connector was installed.

   Should the automatic pass be re-run?

Yes, after each wave of new joiners: the pass only looks at currently unmatched employees, and never undoes an existing match.

### What goes into Slack

The seven notifications that can reach Slack, and the rule that keeps names and amounts out of channels.

[See all Platform articles](/en/centre-aide/?cat=platform)

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