Getting started
What is Dollaroo?
Dollaroo is a peer-to-peer recognition bot that lives entirely inside Slack. Team members give each other virtual kangaroos — "roos" 🦘 — as a quick, public way to say thanks.
Roos add up in each person's balance, and can be redeemed for real rewards your admins set up — an extra day off, a team lunch, a gift voucher, whatever fits your team. There's no separate app, no extra login, and no new tab to keep open. If you can send a Slack message, you already know how to use Dollaroo.
- For team members — give roos in any channel, watch your balance grow, and spend it in the Roo Shop.
- For admins — create rewards, approve redemptions, define your company values, and tune the rules, all from a couple of slash commands.
New here? If you just want to thank a teammate, jump to Giving recognition. If you're rolling Dollaroo out to your team, start with Installing & inviting.
Getting started
Key concepts
Four ideas cover almost everything in Dollaroo. Once these click, the rest is intuitive.
🦘 Roos
A "roo" is one unit of recognition, shown as the kangaroo emoji. You give roos to teammates, and you receive them too. By default each 🦘 in a message counts as one roo (admins can change this).
🎁 Your daily allowance
Every person gets a fresh allowance of roos to give each day — 5 by default. This resets automatically at midnight (in your workspace's timezone). The daily cap is intentional: it keeps recognition feeling genuine rather than spammed.
💰 Your balance
Separately from what you can give, you have a balance of roos you've received. This balance doesn't reset — it's yours to spend in the Roo Shop. Giving roos never costs you anything from your balance; it only uses your daily allowance.
🛍️ Rewards
Admins stock a Roo Shop with rewards, each priced in roos. When you have enough, you redeem one and an admin approves it. Your roos are held the moment you redeem, and refunded if the request is declined.
Allowance vs. balance — the one thing to remember: your daily allowance is what you can give away today. Your balance is what you've earned and can spend. They're two different counters.
Getting started
Installing & inviting Dollaroo
This part is for whoever is setting Dollaroo up for the team — usually an admin. It takes about two minutes.
Add Dollaroo to your workspace
Click any Add to Slack button (top of this page or on the home page), sign in with your work account, and confirm the permissions Slack shows you. Dollaroo is now installed.
Invite Dollaroo to your channels
Recognition is posted publicly in the channel where it's given, so Dollaroo needs to be a member of those channels. In any channel you want recognition to work, type:
/invite @Dollaroo
A good first home is #general, #kudos,
or a dedicated #recognition channel.
Set up your first rewards & values
Open /roo-admin to add a few rewards, and define your company value tags. Then visit /roo-settings to pick a channel for admin alerts. Full walkthroughs are in the admin section.
Tell your team
That's it — post a quick note in your channel showing the format below, and your team can start giving roos immediately.
Right after install, the person who set Dollaroo up receives a welcome DM with everything they need to get going:
Dollaroo only works in channels it's been invited to.
If a roo doesn't seem to register, the most common reason is that
Dollaroo isn't a member of that channel yet — run
/invite @Dollaroo there.
For everyone
Giving recognition
Giving a roo is just sending a normal Slack message. There's no special command — Dollaroo watches for three things in your message and quietly handles the rest.
The recipe for a roo
A message counts as recognition when it contains all of these:
Mention a teammate
Tag the person you're thanking with @, e.g.
@James. You can mention more than one person —
they'll each receive roos.
Add at least one 🦘
Drop the kangaroo emoji into the message. Each 🦘 is worth one
roo by default, so 🦘🦘🦘 gives three. You can type the emoji or
use the :kangaroo: shortcode — both work.
Say why (optional, but lovely)
Add a short note about what they did. You can also add
#tags like #teamwork to tie the moment
to a company value.
Put together, a recognition message looks like this:
What happens next
The moment you hit send, Dollaroo posts a celebration in the same channel so everyone can see the appreciation, and privately DMs the recipient to make their day:
You have 3 roos left today.
Thanking several people at once
Mention multiple teammates in one message and
each person receives the full amount. For example,
@Ava @Priya 🦘🦘 gives two roos to Ava and two
roos to Priya.
Because every roo you hand out counts against your daily allowance, tagging a big group can use it up quickly. If you run out partway through, Dollaroo gives what it can and tells you — see Your daily allowance.
You can't give roos to yourself. If you mention only yourself, Dollaroo gently reminds you to spread the love to a teammate instead. (Mentioning yourself alongside others is fine — you're simply skipped.)
For everyone
Private (DM) recognition
Sometimes appreciation is more meaningful when it's quiet. If you send a recognition message in a direct message to Dollaroo instead of a channel, it stays private:
- Nothing is posted publicly. No channel celebration appears.
- You get a quiet confirmation that the roos were sent.
- The recipient is still notified and still receives the roos — but your name is intentionally withheld, so it arrives as a warm "someone's thinking of you."
To send privately, open a DM with Dollaroo and write your recognition exactly as you would in a channel:
@James received 🦘🦘
You have 3 roos left today.
For everyone
Your daily allowance
Everyone starts each day with the same number of roos to give — 5 by default, though your admin may have set a different number. This is separate from your balance and exists to keep recognition deliberate.
How the limit behaves
- Plenty left? Your roos go through exactly as written.
- Not quite enough left? Dollaroo gives whatever you have remaining and marks the give as a partial one, so you're never left guessing.
- All used up? Dollaroo lets you know your allowance is spent and that it'll refresh at midnight.
Here's what a capped (partial) give and an exhausted allowance look like:
You've used all your roos for today — more tomorrow! 🌅
Allowances reset automatically at midnight in
your workspace's timezone — no action needed. Want to know how
many you have left right now? Run
/roo balance.
For everyone
Checking your balance
Run /roo balance (or just /roo) in any Slack message box. Dollaroo replies with a private summary — visible only to you — showing your spendable balance, how many roos you have left to give today, and your all-time total received.
/roo balanceFor everyone
Your recognition history
Run /roo history to see the last five recognitions you've received — who sent them, how many roos, any value tags, and the message they wrote. Like your balance, this is private to you.
/roo historyFor everyone
The Roo Shop
The Roo Shop is where your earned roos turn into real rewards. Open it with /roo shop or /roo-shop — or tap Open Roo Shop from your Home tab.
Browsing & redeeming
Open the shop
Run /roo shop. A modal opens showing your current balance at the top and every available reward below, sorted from cheapest to priciest.
Find something you can afford
Rewards you can afford show a green Redeem button. Ones you can't yet show how many more roos you need, and out-of-stock items are marked accordingly.
Confirm the redemption
Click Redeem and Dollaroo asks you to confirm, showing what your balance will be afterwards. Your roos are deducted the instant you confirm.
Wait for approval
Your request goes to your admins to approve. You'll get a DM the moment they do — and if it's declined, your roos are refunded automatically.
Your balance after: 4 roos 🦘
As soon as you confirm, Dollaroo DMs you to confirm the request was received:
Reach out to your manager to arrange it.
Roos are held, not lost, while you wait. They leave your balance the moment you redeem so you can't double-spend — but a declined request returns every roo automatically.
For everyone
Your Home dashboard
Click Dollaroo in your Slack sidebar to open its Home tab — a personal dashboard that needs no commands at all. It's the fastest way to see everything at a glance.
The Home tab shows your balance and remaining allowance, a reminder of how to give a roo, your recent recognition, a preview of rewards you can grab, and quick buttons into the shop and value tags.
In any channel, mention a teammate with a 🦘:
For admins
Who's an admin
Admin tools (/roo-admin and /roo-settings)
are limited to two kinds of people:
- Slack workspace admins & owners — always have access, automatically. Nothing to configure.
- App admins — anyone a Slack admin explicitly grants access to via Manage admins. Perfect for an HR or People lead who isn't a Slack admin but should run the program.
A deliberate guardrail: only Slack workspace admins can add or remove app admins. This prevents app admins from quietly expanding their own circle — the keys to access always stay with your Slack admins.
For admins
The admin panel
Run /roo-admin to open the control center. From one screen you can jump to pending redemptions, add rewards, manage value tags, and (if you're a Slack admin) manage who else has admin access.
For admins
Managing rewards
Rewards are the items in your Roo Shop. You can add, edit, and
archive them — all from /roo-admin.
Adding a reward
Open the form
From /roo-admin, click + Add reward.
Fill in the details
Give it a name, an optional description (what the person actually receives), a cost in roos, and an optional stock limit.
Create it
Click Create reward. It appears in the Roo Shop for everyone immediately.
Editing or archiving
Each reward in the admin list has a ⋯ overflow menu with two options:
- Edit — opens the same form pre-filled, so you can adjust the name, description, cost, or stock.
- Archive — removes the reward from the shop. Archiving is non-destructive: past redemptions and their history are kept intact.
Stock works automatically. Set a stock limit and Dollaroo decrements it on each redemption — and restores it if a request is later declined. Leave it blank for an unlimited reward.
For admins
Approving redemptions
When someone redeems a reward, their roos are deducted right away and the request lands in your pending queue. You decide whether to approve or decline it.
Get notified
A new request posts an alert to your notifications channel (or DMs the installer if no channel is set). Tap Review requests to jump straight in.
Open the queue
Or open it any time from /roo-admin → Pending redemptions. Each entry shows who asked, for what, the cost, and when.
Approve or reject
Approve confirms the reward (the person is DM'd to arrange it). Reject declines it and refunds their roos automatically. Both ask you to confirm first.
Clearing a backlog?
Use Approve all at the top to approve every pending request at once — everyone gets notified.
Rejecting always refunds. The person's roos return to their balance instantly and any limited stock is restored — so there's no harm in declining a request that doesn't fit.
For admins
Managing admins
Slack workspace admins can grant other people access to Dollaroo's admin tools — handy for HR or People leads who run the program but aren't Slack admins themselves.
From /roo-admin, click Manage admins (this button only appears for Slack workspace admins). Pick a person to add them, or hit Remove beside anyone to revoke access.
For admins
Workspace settings
Run /roo-settings to tune how Dollaroo behaves for your whole workspace.
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Daily roo limit | How many roos each person can give per day. | 5 |
| Roos per emoji | How many roos each 🦘 in a message is worth. | 1 |
| Timezone | Used to decide when "midnight" is for the daily reset. | Australia/Sydney |
| Admin notifications channel | Where redemption requests and alerts are posted. Blank = they're DM'd to the installer. | — |
For admins
Notifications
Dollaroo keeps everyone in the loop without anyone having to check a dashboard. Here's every proactive message it sends:
| When | Who's notified | How |
|---|---|---|
| You receive roos (in a channel) | The recipient | DM naming the sender |
| You receive roos (privately) | The recipient | DM with the sender's name withheld |
| Someone redeems a reward | Admins | Alert in the notifications channel (or installer DM) |
| A redemption is approved | The requester | DM confirming the reward |
| A redemption is rejected | The requester | DM with a refund notice |
| Dollaroo is first installed | The installer | Onboarding DM |
Set a notifications channel. If you don't, admin
alerts fall back to DMing whoever installed Dollaroo. Pointing
them at a shared channel (e.g. #dollaroo-admin) via
/roo-settings means your
whole admin team sees requests.
Reference
Command cheat sheet
| Command | Who | What it does |
|---|---|---|
@person 🦘 |
Everyone | Give roos — mention someone with at least one 🦘 (in a channel or DM) |
/roo balance |
Everyone | Your spendable balance + today's remaining allowance |
/roo history |
Everyone | The last 5 recognitions you've received |
/roo shop |
Everyone | Browse and redeem rewards |
/roo-shop |
Everyone |
Opens the Roo Shop directly (same as /roo shop)
|
/roo tags |
Everyone | Value tag usage stats and top recipients |
/roo-admin |
Admins | Manage rewards, redemptions, value tags, and admins |
/roo-settings |
Admins | Daily limit, roos per emoji, timezone, notifications channel |
/roo on its own behaves like /roo balance.
Reference
FAQ & troubleshooting
I gave a roo but nothing happened.
Three things to check: (1) Dollaroo must be a member of that channel
— run /invite @Dollaroo; (2) your message needs both an
@mention and at least one 🦘; (3) you can't
give roos only to yourself.
What's the difference between my balance and my allowance?
Your allowance is how many roos you can give away today (resets nightly). Your balance is how many you've earned and can spend in the shop (never resets). Giving never costs you balance.
What happens if I try to give more roos than I have left today?
Dollaroo gives as many as you have remaining and marks it a "partial give." The rest simply isn't sent — try again tomorrow when your allowance refreshes.
Can I give roos to several people in one message?
Yes. Each person you mention receives the full amount, and every roo counts against your daily allowance. Tag a big group and you may hit your cap partway through.
Can I take a roo back?
No — once given, roos belong to the recipient. That's by design; recognition shouldn't be reversible.
Do my roos expire?
Your earned balance doesn't expire. Only your daily giving allowance resets each night.
I redeemed a reward but it still says pending.
Redemptions need an admin to approve them. Your roos are already set aside; if the request is declined they're refunded in full.
Is my recognition public or private?
Recognition given in a channel is public (a celebration is posted there). Recognition sent in a DM to Dollaroo stays private and the recipient won't see who sent it. See Private recognition.
Does :kangaroo: work as well as the 🦘 emoji?
Yes — the typed emoji and the :kangaroo: shortcode are
treated identically.
How do I become an admin?
Slack workspace admins and owners have access automatically. Otherwise, ask a Slack admin to add you via Manage admins.
When exactly do allowances reset?
At midnight in your workspace's configured timezone (set under
/roo-settings).
Reference
Glossary
| Roo 🦘 | One unit of recognition. Given and received between teammates. |
| Daily allowance | The roos you can give each day (default 5). Resets at midnight. |
| Balance | The roos you've received and can spend in the Roo Shop. Doesn't reset. |
| Recognition | A message that gives roos — a mention plus at least one 🦘. |
| Roo Shop | Where roos are redeemed for rewards your admins set up. |
| Reward | A redeemable item priced in roos (e.g. a voucher, a day off). |
| Redemption | A request to claim a reward. Goes to admins to approve or reject. |
| Value tag | A hashtag tying recognition to a company value. Official tags are highlighted; freeform tags aren't. |
| App admin | Someone granted Dollaroo admin access who isn't necessarily a Slack admin. |
| Home tab | Your personal Dollaroo dashboard in the Slack sidebar. |