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README.md

Microsoft Teams - Start Thread In A Specific Channel of a Team

Bot Framework v4 Conversation Bot sample for Teams.

This bot has been created using Bot Framework. This sample shows how to incorporate basic conversational flow into a Teams application. It also illustrates a few of the Teams specific calls you can make from your bot.

This sample is a Spring Boot app and uses the Azure CLI and azure-webapp Maven plugin to deploy to Azure.

Prerequisites

  • Java 1.8+
  • Install Maven
  • An account on Azure if you want to deploy to Azure.
  • Microsoft Teams is installed and you have an account
  • ngrok or equivalent tunnelling solution

To try this sample

Note these instructions are for running the sample on your local machine, the tunnelling solution is required because the Teams service needs to call into the bot.

  • Run ngrok http -host-header=rewrite 3978

  • Create Bot Framework registration resource in Azure

  • Update the resources/application.properties configuration for the bot to use the Microsoft App Id and App Password from the Bot Framework registration. (Note the App Password is referred to as the "client secret" in the azure portal and you can always create a new client secret anytime.)

  • This step is specific to Teams.

    • Edit the manifest.json contained in the teamsAppManifest folder to replace your Microsoft App Id (that was created when you registered your bot earlier) everywhere you see the place holder string <<YOUR-MICROSOFT-APP-ID>> (depending on the scenario the Microsoft App Id may occur multiple times in the manifest.json)
    • Zip up the contents of the teamsAppManifest folder to create a manifest.zip
    • Upload the manifest.zip to Teams (in the Apps view click "Upload a custom app")

  • From the root of this project folder:

    • Build the sample using mvn package
    • Unless done previously, install the packages in the local cache by using mvn install
    • Run it by using java -jar .\target\bot-teams-start-new-thread-sample.jar

Interacting with the bot in Teams

Note this manifest.json specified that the bot will be installed in "personal", "team" and "groupchat" scope which is why you immediately entered a one on one chat conversation with the bot. You can at mention the bot in a group chat or in a Channel in the Team you installed it in. Please refer to Teams documentation for more details.

You can interact with this bot by sending it a message. The bot will respond by creating a new thread in the channel and replying to that new thread.

Deploy the bot to Azure

As described on Deploy your bot, you will perform the first 4 steps to setup the Azure app, then deploy the code using the azure-webapp Maven plugin.

1. Login to Azure

From a command (or PowerShell) prompt in the root of the bot folder, execute:
az login

2. Set the subscription

az account set --subscription "<azure-subscription>"

If you aren't sure which subscription to use for deploying the bot, you can view the list of subscriptions for your account by using az account list command.

3. Create an App registration

az ad app create --display-name "<botname>" --password "<appsecret>" --available-to-other-tenants

Replace <botname> and <appsecret> with your own values.

<botname> is the unique name of your bot.
<appsecret> is a minimum 16 character password for your bot.

Record the appid from the returned JSON

4. Create the Azure resources

Replace the values for <appid>, <appsecret>, <botname>, and <groupname> in the following commands:

To a new Resource Group

az deployment sub create --name "teamsNewThreadDeploy" --location "westus" --template-file ".\deploymentTemplates\template-with-new-rg.json" --parameters appId="<appid>" appSecret="<appsecret>" botId="<botname>" botSku=S1 newAppServicePlanName="teamsNewThreadPlan" newWebAppName="teamsNewThread" groupLocation="westus" newAppServicePlanLocation="westus"

To an existing Resource Group

az deployment group create --resource-group "<groupname>" --template-file ".\deploymentTemplates\template-with-preexisting-rg.json" --parameters appId="<appid>" appSecret="<appsecret>" botId="<botname>" newWebAppName="teamsNewThread" newAppServicePlanName="teamsNewThreadPlan" appServicePlanLocation="westus" --name "teamsNewThread"

5. Update app id and password

In src/main/resources/application.properties update

  • MicrosoftAppPassword with the botsecret value
  • MicrosoftAppId with the appid from the first step

6. Deploy the code

  • Execute mvn clean package
  • Execute mvn azure-webapp:deploy -Dgroupname="<groupname>" -Dbotname="<bot-app-service-name>"

If the deployment is successful, you will be able to test it via "Test in Web Chat" from the Azure Portal using the "Bot Channel Registration" for the bot.

After the bot is deployed, you only need to execute #6 if you make changes to the bot.

Further reading