Hi all,
I wanted to share a behavior we’re seeing with Glean Agent in Slack (Option C) and SharePoint permissions, and why it’s painful in day‑to‑day use.
What’s happening (in simple terms)
- We have a Glean agent deployed in Slack that answers questions using content from SharePoint (HR / finance FAQs, policies, etc.).
- The same question often gives two different results:
- In the web agent, Glean can open the SharePoint document and give a good answer.
- In Slack with Option C (public responses), Glean sometimes says it can’t access the document, even when:
- The user asking has access
- Other people in the Slack channel have access
- The site and folder permissions have been set correctly for our business (via groups and named users)
- Within a few minutes, asking again in the same Slack channel may suddenly work — so it doesn’t feel like a simple “you don’t have permission” case.
Why this happens today
Support has explained that with Slack Option C, Glean will only show content that is marked as DOMAIN_VISIBLE or PUBLIC_VISIBLE.
That effectively means:
- If a SharePoint site is not opened up to “Everyone except external users” at the site level,
- then even if all people in the Slack channel already have access to the documents /pages level via groups / named users,
- the document still won’t appear in an Option C (public) answer.
So to make Option C consistent, we’re asked to open the SharePoint site to everyone in the company, which:
- Breaks the way many teams structure staggered / selective access in SharePoint
- Isn’t acceptable for sites that intentionally use group‑based or user‑based permissions
- still pending test on latest release as testing “Everyone except external users” doesnt work as well
The current workaround is to use Option B in Slack, but then:
- Answers are not shared with the whole channel
- Teammates can’t easily see, sanity‑check, or correct answers
- People might trust a wrong answer that only they can see
What we’re asking for
It would be hugely helpful if Slack Option C could respect SharePoint group / user‑level permissions, instead of requiring “Everyone except external users” at the site level.
Concretely:
- If everyone in the Slack channel already has access to a SharePoint doc (via groups or named users),
- Glean should be able to use and share that content in a public Option C response,
without us having to relax the site to full domain‑wide visibility.
This would let us:
- Keep using proper SharePoint permission models (groups, named users, sensitive folders)
- Still get the benefit of transparent, channel‑visible answers in Slack
- Avoid confusing “no access” messages when, from a business point of view, access is already correct
Why this matters
For us, these are core HR and finance FAQs / policies. We want:
- Fast, trusted, shared answers in Slack
- No pressure to over‑open SharePoint sites just to make Option C work
- Behaviour in Slack that feels aligned with what people can already access in SharePoint and via the web agent
If you’re also using Slack Option C + SharePoint and have run into similar issues,
please upvote and comment so the product team can see how common this need is.
Thanks for reading
