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This app demonstrates how to start a conversation thread in a specific Teams channel using Bot Framework v4.
office-teams
office
office-365
csharp
contentType createdDate
samples
01/23/2020 13:38:25 PM
officedev-microsoft-teams-samples-bot-initiate-thread-in-channel-csharp

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

This sample application illustrates how to initiate a conversation thread within a specific channel in Microsoft Teams using Bot Framework v4. It includes key features such as adaptive cards, bot-driven interactions, and setup instructions for Teams Toolkit in Visual Studio, enabling easy sideloading and debugging. Ideal for developers looking to integrate bots in Teams channels and create engaging, context-specific conversations.

Included Features

  • Bots
  • Adaptive Cards
  • Initiate thread in Teams Channel

Interaction with bot**

new-Thread-In-Channel

Try it yourself - experience the App in your Microsoft Teams client

Please find below demo manifest which is deployed on Microsoft Azure and you can try it yourself by uploading the app manifest (.zip file link below) to your teams and/or as a personal app. (Sideloading must be enabled for your tenant, see steps here).

Start Thread In A Specific Channel of a Team: Manifest

Prerequisites

Run the app (Using Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio)

The simplest way to run this sample in Teams is to use Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio.

  1. Install Visual Studio 2022 Version 17.9 or higher Visual Studio
  2. Install Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Teams Toolkit extension
  3. In the debug dropdown menu of Visual Studio, select Dev Tunnels > Create A Tunnel (set authentication type to Public) or select an existing public dev tunnel.
  4. In Visual Studio, right-click your project and Select Teams Toolkit > Prepare Teams App Dependencies
  5. Using the extension, sign in with your Microsoft 365 account where you have permissions to upload custom apps.
  6. Select Debug > Start Debugging or F5 to run the menu in Visual Studio.
  7. In the browser that launches, select the Add button to install the app to Teams.

If you do not have permission to upload custom apps (sideloading), Teams Toolkit will recommend creating and using a Microsoft 365 Developer Program account - a free program to get your own dev environment sandbox that includes Teams.

Run the app (Using Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio)

The simplest way to run this sample in Teams is to use Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio.

  1. Install Visual Studio 2022 Version 17.10 Preview 4 or higher Visual Studio
  2. Install Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Teams Toolkit extension
  3. In the debug dropdown menu of Visual Studio, select Dev Tunnels > Create A Tunnel (set authentication type to Public) or select an existing public dev tunnel.
  4. In the debug dropdown menu of Visual Studio, select default startup project > Microsoft Teams (browser)
  5. In Visual Studio, right-click your TeamsApp project and Select Teams Toolkit > Prepare Teams App Dependencies
  6. Using the extension, sign in with your Microsoft 365 account where you have permissions to upload custom apps.
  7. Select Debug > Start Debugging or F5 to run the menu in Visual Studio.
  8. In the browser that launches, select the Add button to install the app to Teams.

If you do not have permission to upload custom apps (sideloading), Teams Toolkit will recommend creating and using a Microsoft 365 Developer Program account - a free program to get your own dev environment sandbox that includes Teams.

Setup

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.

  1. Run ngrok - point to port 3978

    ngrok http 3978 --host-header="localhost:3978"

    Alternatively, you can also use the dev tunnels. Please follow Create and host a dev tunnel and host the tunnel with anonymous user access command as shown below:

    devtunnel host -p 3978 --allow-anonymous

  2. Setup for Bot

    In Azure portal, create a Azure Bot resource.

    • For bot handle, make up a name.
    • Select "Use existing app registration" (Create the app registration in Microsoft Entra ID beforehand.)
    • If you don't have an Azure account create an Azure free account here

    In the new Azure Bot resource in the Portal,

    • Ensure that you've enabled the Teams Channel
    • In Settings/Configuration/Messaging endpoint, enter the current https URL you were given by running the tunneling application. Append with the path /api/messages

  3. Clone the repository

    git clone https://github.com/OfficeDev/Microsoft-Teams-Samples.git

  4. If you are using Visual Studio

    • Launch Visual Studio
    • File -> Open -> Project/Solution
    • Navigate to samples/bot-initiate-thread-in-channel/csharp folder
    • Select TeamsStartNewThreadInTeam.csproj or TeamsStartNewThreadInTeam.slnfile

  5. Update the appsettings.json configuration for the bot to use the MicrosoftAppId, MicrosoftAppPassword, MicrosoftAppTenantId generated in Step 2 (App Registration creation). (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.)

    • Set "MicrosoftAppType" in the appsettings.json. (Allowed values are: MultiTenant(default), SingleTenant, UserAssignedMSI)

  6. Run your bot, either from Visual Studio with F5 or using dotnet run in the appropriate folder.

  7. This step is specific to Teams.

    • Edit the manifest.json contained in the appPackage 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)
    • Edit the manifest.json for validDomains with base Url domain. E.g. if you are using ngrok it would be https://1234.ngrok-free.app then your domain-name will be 1234.ngrok-free.app and if you are using dev tunnels then your domain will be like: 12345.devtunnels.ms.
    • Zip up the contents of the appPackage folder to create a manifest.zip (Make sure that zip file does not contains any subfolder otherwise you will get error while uploading your .zip package)
    • Upload the manifest.zip to Teams (In Teams Apps/Manage your apps click "Upload an app". Browse to and Open the .zip file. At the next dialog, click the Add button.)
    • Add the app to a any Teams channel

Note: If you are facing any issue in your app, please uncomment this line and put your debugger for local debug.

Running the sample

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.

Adding the bot to a team's channel : Add-App

Add-App-To-Teams-Channel

Mentioned Bot

Mention the bot in a team's channel using "@" with any message like: '@yourbotname Hello' : Response In Thread

Deploy the bot to Azure

To learn more about deploying a bot to Azure, see Deploy your bot to Azure for a complete list of deployment instructions.

Further reading