Help

What to check when a give doesn't land, and what Onya does that isn't obvious.

Nothing happened

When a give doesn't count, Onya is usually quiet about it. Work down this list. It's ordered by how often each one turns out to be the answer.

  1. Onya isn't in the channel. It only sees channels it's been invited to. Type /invite @onya in the channel and give it another go.
  2. The emoji isn't the right one. Only your workspace's chosen emoji counts. /onya help shows which one that is.
  3. You mentioned yourself. You can't give yourself an onya, and a message that only mentions you does nothing.
  4. You're out for today. This is the one case Onya does tell you about, in a message only you can see.
  5. They're a bot or a deactivated account. Both are skipped.
  6. You edited the emoji into an existing message. See below. This one catches people out.

Three things that surprise people

Editing a message doesn't count

Onya reads messages as they're posted. If you send a message and then edit the emoji in afterwards, nothing happens, and nothing will tell you it didn't. Post a new message instead.

More emoji means more onyas, per person

The number of emoji is how many each mentioned person receives. ⭐⭐ @sam gives Sam two. ⭐⭐⭐ @sam @lee gives them three each, which is six from your daily three, and a give that doesn't fit is refused whole rather than credited in part. Nobody gets anything, and you'll get a note telling you how many you had left.

Taking your reaction back takes the onya back

Remove your reaction and the give is deleted from the ledger and off the leaderboard. Worth knowing that they were already told about it when you first reacted, and they aren't told when you undo it.

Everyday questions

Spending your onyas

Some workspaces switch rewards on. Where they're on, /onya rewards is the catalogue: what your onyas can buy, with a Redeem button on anything you can redeem right now and a line telling you what's in the way on anything you can't - the price, the stock, or an allowance you've already had. If /onya help doesn't mention rewards, they aren't on in your workspace, and an admin has to switch them on.

"Available to spend" is not your all-time total

They're two different numbers and /onya balance shows both. All-time is everything you've ever been given, and it never goes down. Available to spend is that same total minus everything you've redeemed. Spending doesn't touch the leaderboard either - what you were given stays yours there whether you spend it or not.

Redeeming happens immediately and can't be undone

Onya asks you to confirm, and then it's done: the onyas are spent, there's no approval step to wait for and no refunds. It also announces it in your workspace's rewards channel with your name on it, which is rather the point - spending recognition is meant to be seen. Whatever the reward actually is, your workspace provides it, not Onya.

Why your balance can read below zero

An onya given by a reaction goes away if the person takes their reaction back, and that can happen after you've already spent it. Nothing is taken back off you, so the gap shows as a negative number instead. You'll be able to redeem again once you've received enough to cover the price.

The Redeem button said no

The catalogue you're looking at is a snapshot, so a click can arrive after the thing has moved: the price changed, the item was archived, it ran out, you've had your allowance of it, or an admin switched rewards off. Whichever it is, nothing was charged - each of those replies says so. Run /onya rewards again for the current list. Two fast clicks on the same item are treated as one, so a double-click won't buy two.

Where to see what you've redeemed

/onya rewards mine, newest first, each one at the price you paid at the time. It's your receipt: it doesn't change if an admin later reprices or archives the item, and it keeps working even if the workspace switches rewards off. Onya also DMs you a receipt every time you redeem.

For admins

Pick an emoji without skin tones

Slack sends a skin-toned reaction under a different name, so a toned 👏 won't match a plain clap and the reaction will silently do nothing. If your workspace uses hands or people emoji, expect some reactions not to count. Objects and symbols are safer.

Changing the emoji doesn't rewrite history

Onyas already given stay on the leaderboard. Only new gives use the new emoji.

Setting up the rewards catalogue

Rewards are off until you switch them on, and they can't go on until there's somewhere to announce redemptions. Three steps, in this order:

  1. Pick the channel. Run /onya admin rewards channel in the channel you want announcements in. Onya posts a note there so you can see it arrived, and refuses to save a channel it can't post in - invite it first. To choose a different channel, add it from Slack's autocomplete so it arrives as a link; a typed #name can't be looked up.
  2. Switch them on. /onya admin rewards on. off stops any further spending; nothing already redeemed is affected.
  3. Add something to buy. /onya admin rewards add "Coffee voucher" 50. It also takes emoji=coffee, desc="On the house", image=https://..., stock=3, and cap=1 per=30 for one per person every 30 days.

/onya admin rewards list shows the catalogue with each item's id, edit <id> cost=40 changes one and none clears an optional field, and archive <id> takes an item out of the catalogue without deleting it, because people's receipts point at it. Twenty items can be in the catalogue at once - Slack limits how much fits in one message, and each item can take two of that budget.

An item's image has to be an https link that Slack itself can fetch, since Onya never fetches it. If Slack can't, the catalogue arrives without any pictures and says so.

You decide what a reward is and you hand it over yourself. Onya records the redemption, announces it and keeps the receipt - it doesn't provide the reward, and it can't take one back.

Still stuck? Email onya@dotmahdi.com.

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