Send a Slack alert when a Salesforce deal changes stage using Claude Cowork

Prerequisites

Overview

Claude Cowork lets you define a recurring task in plain English and have Claude execute it on a schedule — no script or skill file required. You describe what you want Claude to do, and it uses its built-in tools to call the Salesforce REST API directly, check for stage changes, and post alerts to Slack. This is the fastest way to get deal stage alerts working with zero code.

Step 1: Get your Salesforce API credentials

You need a Salesforce access token for API calls. The simplest option for a single-user setup:

1. In Salesforce, go to Setup → Apps → App Manager → New Connected App
2. Enable OAuth with scopes api and refresh_token
3. Use the OAuth flow or generate a session token from Setup → Security → Session Settings

Store your instance URL (e.g., https://yourorg.my.salesforce.com) and access token where Claude can access them — either as environment variables or directly in the task description.

Step 2: Create the Cowork task

Open Claude Desktop and go to the Cowork tab. Click + New task.

Fill in the task:

Title: Alert Slack when Salesforce deals change stage

Description:

You are a sales ops assistant. Your job is to check for Salesforce opportunity stage changes and post alerts to Slack.
 
Steps:
1. Query the Salesforce REST API for recently modified opportunities:
   GET https://yourorg.my.salesforce.com/services/data/v59.0/query?q=SELECT+Id,Name,Amount,StageName,LastModifiedDate+FROM+Opportunity+WHERE+LastModifiedDate>LAST_N_HOURS:1+AND+StageName!=null
   Auth: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN
 
2. For each opportunity returned, post a Slack message to #sales-pipeline:
   POST https://slack.com/api/chat.postMessage
   Auth: Bearer YOUR_SLACK_BOT_TOKEN
   Body: {"channel": "C0123456789", "text": "Deal updated", "blocks": [{"type": "section", "text": {"type": "mrkdwn", "text": "🔄 *Deal Stage Changed*\n*DEAL_NAME* is in *STAGE_NAME*\nAmount: $AMOUNT"}}]}
 
3. Print a summary of how many alerts were sent.
 
Important: Only alert on opportunities that were modified in the last hour to avoid duplicate alerts.

Replace yourorg, YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN, YOUR_SLACK_BOT_TOKEN, and the channel ID with your real values.

Step 3: Set the schedule

Frequency: Every hour (or every 30 minutes for fast-moving pipelines)

Cowork will execute the task on this cadence and show you the output each time.

Step 4: Run manually first

Before trusting the schedule, click Run now in Cowork to test it. Claude will:

1. Call the Salesforce REST API with the SOQL query
2. Parse the returned opportunities
3. Post a Slack message for each one
4. Print a run summary

A successful run looks like:

Queried Salesforce: 3 opportunities modified in the last hour.
 
Acme Corp — Enterprise License → Negotiation/Review ($125,000) ✓
GlobalTech — Platform Deal → Closed Won ($89,000) ✓
Startup Inc — Starter Plan → Discovery ($12,000) ✓
 
Done. Posted 3 alerts to #sales-pipeline.

Step 5: Refine the task description

After the first few runs, review the alerts. If they're too noisy, add filters to the task description:

"Only alert on opportunities where StageName is one of: Negotiation/Review, Closed Won, Closed Lost. Skip all other stage changes."

"Include the Account name and Opportunity owner in each alert."

Cowork's task description is your prompt — the more specific you are, the better Claude performs.

When to use this approach

• You want stage alerts working today without writing or deploying any code
• Your pipeline has fewer than 100 stage changes per day and hourly batching is acceptable
• You're testing which alerts matter before building a permanent Flow or n8n workflow
• You want natural-language control over filtering and formatting

When to switch approaches

• You need alerts to fire instantly when a stage changes → use Salesforce Record-Triggered Flows
• You need 24/7 reliability without keeping a laptop open → use the Agent Skill with cron
• You want visual workflow editing and easy maintenance → use n8n