Managing the Open Channel

The Open track routes anonymous questions to a public channel — #hush-public by default — where any member with access can respond.

It's for general questions: how-tos, policy lookups, process questions. Things the whole team benefits from seeing answered.

Unlike the confidential HR channel, responses here aren't restricted to HR. Anyone in the channel can answer. The best answers get saved to Notion, where they become permanent company knowledge.

Channel setup

1. Open the HushAsk App Home tab in Slack
2. In the Configuration section (admin only), select your Open channel from the public channel dropdown
3. Only members you invite to that channel will see questions routed there

Who to include: This is a broader channel than #hush-hr. Invite subject-matter experts, team leads, HR generalists, and operations staff — anyone likely to have a useful answer. The goal is fast, knowledgeable responses. More coverage is better here.

What members see

Questions arrive as anonymous posts in the channel. The post shows the message content with HushAsk branding and action buttons — sender identity is protected throughout.

Members with access see three action buttons:

• Reply to Employee — sends an anonymous reply to the employee's private message thread
• Close & Sync to Notion — closes the thread and opens the archive modal to save it to your Notion Hush Library
• Close Only — closes the thread without archiving

The sender never sees who replied.

How to respond

Any member of the channel can click "Reply to Employee" and respond. The reply is delivered to the sender's private messages, anonymously — they see it as a response from HushAsk, not from a named person.

If multiple members want to contribute, coordinate the reply in the channel before sending — the employee receives one reply thread, not multiple separate responses.

Archiving to Notion

When a question has been answered and the thread is ready to close:

1. Click "Close & Sync to Notion" on the triage message
2. Enter a clear, searchable summary title — e.g. "How do parental leave top-ups work?"
3. HushAsk creates an entry in your Notion Hush Library with the title, route (Public), status (New), and full message body

This step is optional and intentional — not every thread needs to be archived. Archive the ones with answers that will be useful again. Over time, your Notion knowledge base builds from the questions your team actually asks.

What employees see

When their question receives a reply, the employee gets a private message from HushAsk with the response. They won't know who in the channel answered. If the thread is archived to Notion, there's no notification to the employee — the archive is an admin action.

A note on scope

The Open channel is for general questions. Sensitive topics — pay, performance, HR concerns, anything employees wouldn't want visible to the broader channel — belong on the Confidential track. HushAsk presents both routing options to the employee; they choose. Your channel setup determines where each track lands.