An Easy Way for Teams to Submit Product Requests

TL;DR - Teams can submit product requests directly from Slack using a simple reaction-based workflow. When someone reacts to a message with the 🐞 emoji, Zapier turns that message into a structured Story in Shortcut with the full context attached. Every request lands in the same triage workflow, making it easy for the engineering team to review, refine, and prioritize. The workflow is fast, predictable, and keeps ideas from getting lost across channels.

Collecting product requests across a growing company can get messy fast. Ideas, bug reports and feedback show up in Slack threads, customer updates, meeting notes, screenshots, and DMs. Before long, the engineering team is digging through ten different places trying to understand what’s important.

So we made that easier with a simple workflow you can set up once and use every day. After the integration is in place, your team doesn’t have to do anything different. Just add a reaction to the message and the request flows into Shortcut where it can be reviewed, refined, and prioritized.

Here is how it works.

Why use Slack reactions instead of forms or bots?

Most teams start with a form. Some try a bot. Both pull people out of their flow and force them to think about templates, fields, or how to describe the request “the right way.” That’s usually where ideas get dropped.

Slack reactions solve the problem in the simplest possible way. If someone posts something that feels like a product request or useful insight, anyone can mark it with a dedicated emoji, ours is 🐞. That tiny action triggers the workflow and turns the message into a clean, structured Shortcut Story with all the original context preserved.

It keeps the process lightweight and makes sharing ideas and reporting feedback feel natural instead of formal.

How the Workflow Actually Works

The flow we use incorporates Slack, Zapier, and Shortcut. Here is the basic sequence that keeps everything consistent.

Step 1. Zapier listens for a specific Slack reaction

This avoids repeated triggers and gives teams an intentional way to signal that something should enter the queue.

Step 2. Zapier formats a clean story title

Zapier’s AI formatter turns the Slack message into a short, direct title instead of copying a long paragraph or screenshot. This makes the story easier to scan during triage.

‍Step 3. The Story is created in Shortcut with defaults

Every new request lands in the same place with the same settings, which makes triage fast and consistent. The workflow creates a new Story for our engineering team and places it directly in the triage state for our support engineers to review. Each Story also includes a link back to the original Slack thread to give reviewers the full context right away.

Step 4. A confirmation reply is posted in the Slack thread

Only the thread is notified, not the entire channel. This avoids noise while still giving requesters instant confirmation that their idea was captured.

It’s simple, predictable, and once people use it once, they remember it forever.

What This Unlocks for the Engineering Team

When every idea flows to one place, everything gets easier. The team gains:

• A single source of truth for new requests
• Full context from the original conversation
• Easier triage and grooming
• Fewer duplicates floating around
• Better discussions about what to prioritize

Instead of chasing context or copying Slack messages, the team can focus on the work that matters: understanding impact, spotting patterns, and making clear tradeoffs.

💡And if you want those new Stories to be more structured before triage, you can assign the Story to Korey. Korey is our AI agent for product development that automatically improves Stories by cleaning up titles, writing descriptions and Acceptance Criteria, and giving each request the structure it needs before an engineer picks it up.

Why This Workflow Matters

Great product decisions start with clear inputs. When it’s easy for people to share ideas and feedback, they share more of them. When the context stays attached, the engineering team saves hours. When everything lands in a consistent place, decisions become more grounded and more transparent.

A single Slack reaction may feel small, but it changes how ideas move through the company. It lets ideas start in Slack, take shape in Shortcut, and move through a more connected workflow.

Sometimes the most helpful workflows are the ones that disappear into the background. This is one of them.

FAQ 

How does the Slack-to-Shortcut workflow function?

A Zapier automation listens for a specific Slack reaction. When the reaction is added, Zapier formats the message and creates a new Story in Shortcut with the full context.

Is any additional input required from the requester?

No. The reaction alone captures the message, attachments, and conversation history.

Where are new requests created in Shortcut?

Each request is automatically added to a designated team and placed in the triage workflow state for consistent review.

Are requesters notified when their idea is captured?

Yes. A confirmation message is posted in the originating Slack thread. Only the thread is notified to avoid unnecessary channel noise.

Why use Slack reactions instead of forms or bot-based submission?

Slack reactions provide a low-friction, universally understood action for capturing ideas. Forms and bots require more steps and often reduce submission volume.

How does this benefit the product development team?

Centralizing requests in Shortcut improves triage efficiency, preserves all contextual data, reduces duplication, and strengthens prioritization discussions.

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If you’d like to set up this workflow for your own team, Shortcut makes it easy to capture ideas, organize requests, and keep work moving from idea to shipped.

➡️ Try Shortcut free with your team: https://www.shortcut.com