Quip to Slack Canvas Conversion: How Account Matching Works

How do accounts get matched across Quip and Slack?

When a Slack admin approves a Quip admin's request to connect their teams, account matching runs automatically. For each Quip user, the system looks for a person in the connected Slack team who has the same email address.

• If exactly one Slack account matches, the two are linked.
• If an active and a deactivated account both match, the active account is preferred.
• If no Slack account matches, or more than one matches, the user is left unmatched (see the resolution sections below).

Matching is based entirely on email address, so accurate emails on both sides are what make it work.

How is account matching used to preserve document access from Quip to Slack?

When a user converts a Quip document to a Slack canvas, most users who had access to the document in Quip will continue to have access in Slack if they have an active matched Slack user. In some cases, due to different permission models in Quip and canvas, users in Slack may have reduced access or may lose access. Once the document lands in Slack, users with access to the canvas can modify access and add/remove Slack users using Slack's canvas permissions. Some changes you may see:

• Comment-only users will become read-only users
• Users external to the originating Quip company will lose access
• Quip users who do not have a Slack user in the target Slack organization with lose access
• Slack canvas does not have a link-sharing option
• Read-only users will lose access
• Users with access to the doc via workgroup membership who have never opened the document will lose access

Although some users may lose access to the document as a part of the transition from Quip to Slack, no users will gain elevated permissions through this process, unless a Slack user manually adds them to the canvas once the conversion process is complete.

Why are there matched accounts for deactivated Quip and Slack users?

Account matching isn't only about preserving access for people who are currently active. It's how the conversion preserves an accurate record of who contributed to a document. When a Quip document becomes a canvas, matching is used to keep:

• Content attribution — who originally authored each part of the document.
• @mentions — people referenced in the document point to the right Slack person.
• Comment attribution — each comment stays tied to the person who wrote it.

People who have left your organization may still have authored content, been mentioned, or left comments. Matching their deactivated accounts keeps that history accurate in the converted canvas, rather than dropping or misattributing their contributions.

Why are documents with content from unmatched users blocked from converting?

In a canvas, every piece of content — text, mentions, and comments — needs to be attributed to a real Slack user. If a document includes content from someone who has no matching Slack account, that content would become orphaned: attributed to no one.
To preserve the fidelity of your documents and avoid orphaned content, a document that contains content from unmatched users is blocked from converting until those users can be matched. This is a safeguard to make sure nothing in the converted canvas loses its original author or context.

How can I resolve users that aren't matched from Quip to Slack?

Because matching relies on email addresses, most unmatched users can be resolved by making emails consistent across both products:

• Keep emails accurate and current for your users in both Quip and Slack.
• Use a single source of truth, such as your SSO provider, so the same email is used in both places.
• Make sure each Quip user has a matching Slack user with the same email address in the connected team.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Some unmatched users are expected. People who used Quip but never had a Slack account can't be matched, and that's normal.
• Not every document will convert. Roughly 65% of Quip documents are expected to be compatible with Slack canvas. Some documents that are blocked because of unmatched users may be better moved using an alternative export format instead of canvas conversion.

How can I resolve a Quip user that matches multiple Slack accounts?

This happens when a Quip user's email address matches more than one account in the connected Slack team. There are two ways to fix it:

• Set a preferred domain. When a preferred email domain is configured for the connection, matching will use the account whose email is on that domain to break the tie. For instance, take a Quip user that has both user@example.com and user@other-domain.com email addresses, and both of these emails match to a user within the connected Slack team. If an admin sets example.com as the Quip team's preferred domain, the account matching process will choose user@example.com as the correct Slack user.
• Make emails one-to-one. Make sure each Quip user lists a single email address that matches exactly one Slack account.

On the Slack side, make sure each employee has only one active Slack account in the connected Slack organization.

Do matches stay up to date after the initial connection?

Yes. Account matching refreshes automatically on a regular basis, so when you correct an email address or add a missing account, the match updates without any manual work. Admins can also re-run matching at any time from the admin console using Match Accounts — this refreshes matches and corrects ones that have become out of date. When users are re-synced across Quip and Slack, the process will also pick up new users in Quip that need to be matched to a user in Slack.