DIBS ON STUFF
FOR TAKING TURNS IN SLACK
Dibs On Stuff was used in Slack
over 170,000 times in 2023
(mostly for claiming staging/dev servers)
Write the Slack message:
If no one is using the THING, it's yours. Otherwise you join the queue and will get a Slack notification once it's your go.
/dibs on THING
If no one is using the THING, it's yours. Otherwise you join the queue and will get a Slack notification once it's your go.
- Claim the staging/dev server to demo code changes
- Bring dogs to work (one at a time!)
- Call dibs on the carparks each week
- Deal out sales leads or support tickets evenly
- Share the load with office chores
Dibs is the friendly way to take turns with anything, add it to your Slack with two clicks:
More?
If you activate the extra
features you can use Slack buttons instead of typing, or use timers
to automatically release your queues, and so much more...
The Extra Features
- An entire organization can get access to the extra features for $9.95 or $19.95 (Pro) per month
- No per-team-member charges, or credit card bills that "scale with you"
- Dibs is privacy friendly (see below) and provides a suite of features unmatched
| Feature | Free | Extra | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited queues | |||
| Unlimited team members | |||
Unlimited |
|||
| Unlimited Slack channel usage | |||
| Bump the THING to the next person in line | |||
Automatic /dibs off after a specified duration |
|||
| Allow only approved queue names | |||
| Add reasons for calling dibs on things | |||
| Slack buttons for less typing | |||
| Random queues for delightful surprises | |||
| Secret queues with people's names hidden | |||
| Queue nudging for conch-hogs | |||
| Abbreviations for queue names | |||
| API access | |||
| Restrict queues to particular Slack channels | |||
| Automatic re-queuing for job roster queues | |||
| Enforce timers on queues | |||
| Queue jumping (just in case) | |||
| Queue renaming | |||
| Access to analytics (work in progress) |
Extra #1
Automatic release
Automatic release
Automatically release the item after an amount of time that you specify.
Use the keyword "for" to indicate the time period.
/dibs on server1 for 45 min
Extra #2
Add a description
Add a description
Help other team members understand more, by stating a short description.
Use the keyword "because" to indicate the reason.
/dibs on server1 because issue #4758
Extra #3 Pro
API access
API access
Manipulate items inside your instance of Slack from the API. See conchable.com for more API info. Eg:
curl https://conchable.com/seize
-X POST
-H 'X-Api-Key:YOUR_KEY'
-H 'Content-type:application/json'
-d '{
"conch": "SLACK_TEAM/CONCH",
"slack_team_id": "TEAM_ID",
"name": "SLACK_USERNAME"
}'
Extra #4
Approved names
Approved names
Ability to define a fixed list of approved item names.
No more spelling errors, eg: "/dibs on staging" works, but "/dibs on stageing" won't.
/dibs set staging approved
/dibs on stag (and abbreviation works)
Extra #5
Buttons!
Buttons!
One-click buttons for a richer Slack interface:
Extra #6 Pro
Repeating Queues
Repeating Queues
Great for roster duty or taking turns with after hours support or any other turn taking event that repeats day after day.
Once a person discards the THING, they'll automatically get placed onto the end of the queue again.
/dibs set water-cooler-refill repeat
Their job will be to fill up the water-cooler, and it will only be their turn again, once everyone else has had their turn.
Extra #7
Random Queues
Random Queues
Can't decide who the lucky person is today? Better than drawing names from a hat, use a random queue to decide who's next!
For even more mischief mix and match it with Secret queues to prevent anyone peeking at the order of people in the queue.
Just update the relevant THING to make it random and secret eg:
/dibs set feed-fish random
/dibs set feed-fish secret
And don't forget you can always use wildcards to specify multiple queues, eg
/dibs set chores/* random
Extra #8 Pro
Separate Queues For Separate Slack channels
Separate Queues For Separate Slack channels
Per-Slack-channel queues so you can keep separate collections of queues in separate Slack channels.
For example, a
#parking channel to contain the car parking conches - and
a separate #deploy channel to handle the staging server conches.
Running:
/dibs set carpark3 approved parking/dibs set staging approved deploy
will keep different types of conches in separate channels.
Privacy Policy
The information that is put into this service is used only to run this service. No spam. No data collection. Here are the long versions Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
And the plain fact from the Slack app store about what data Dibs is able to collect, compared to another similar app:
And the plain fact from the Slack app store about what data Dibs is able to collect, compared to another similar app:
Contact me
Any questions or support queries: trouble @ conchable.com
Alex Lance
Alex Lance
Other projects
Some other stuff I've been working on:
tfstate.com bring your terraform infrastructure a bit closer
Conchable.com a general API for queuing systems - the engine underneath Dibs On Stuff
Autoexpire.com transfer sensitive information to your clients (for sharing passwords or other credentials, and customizing the security controls)
Streetmates.net join up the people in your street in a non-intrusive fashion (give each street on the planet a mailing list)
tfstate.com bring your terraform infrastructure a bit closer
Conchable.com a general API for queuing systems - the engine underneath Dibs On Stuff
Autoexpire.com transfer sensitive information to your clients (for sharing passwords or other credentials, and customizing the security controls)
Streetmates.net join up the people in your street in a non-intrusive fashion (give each street on the planet a mailing list)