proactive

Bot Framework Proactive Message Sample

This Microsoft Teams bot example uses the msbotbuilder-go library. It shows how to create a simple bot that sets conversation reference and sends proactive messages from Bot to user.

Run the example

Step 1: Register MS BOT

Follow the official documentation to create and register your BOT.

Copy APP_ID and APP_PASSWORD generated for your BOT.

Do not set any messaging endpoint for now.

Step 2: Run echo local server

Set two variables for the session as APP_ID and APP_PASSWORD to the values of your BotFramework APP_ID and APP_PASSWORD. Then run the main.go file.

export APP_PASSWORD=MICROSOFT_APP_PASSWORD
export APP_ID=MICROSOFT_APP_ID

go run main.go

This will start a server which will listen on port 3978

Step 3: Expose local server with ngrok

Now, in separate terminal, run ngrok command to expose your local server to outside world.

$ ngrok http 3978

Copy https endpoint, go to Bot Framework dashboard and set messaging endpoint under Settings.

Step 4: Test the BOT

You can either test BOT on BotFramework portal or you can create app manifest and install the App on Teams as mentioned here.

Understanding the example

The program starts by creating a handler struct of type activity.HandlerFuncs.

This struct contains definition for the OnMessageFunc field which is a treated as a callback by the library on the respective event.

e.g

var customHandler = activity.HandlerFuncs{
	OnMessageFunc: func(turn *activity.TurnContext) (schema.Activity, error) {
		var obj map[string]interface{}
		err := json.Unmarshal(cardJson, &obj)
		if err != nil {
			return schema.Activity{}, err
		}
		attachments := []schema.Attachment{
			{
				ContentType: "application/vnd.microsoft.card.adaptive",
				Content:     obj,
			},
		}
		return turn.SendActivity(activity.MsgOptionText(activity.MsgOptionAttachments(attachments))
	},
}

The init function picks up the APP_ID and APP_PASSWORD from the environment session and creates an adapter using this.

A webserver is started with a handler which passes the received payload to adapter.ParseRequest. This methods authenticates the payload, parses the request and returns an Activity value.

activity, err := adapter.ParseRequest(ctx, req)

The Activity is then passed to adapter.ProcessActivity with the handler created to process the activity as per the handler functions and send the response to the connector service.

err = adapter.ProcessActivity(ctx, activity, customHandler)

Once the incoming activity is processed, the conversation reference is set with

conversationRef = activity.GetCoversationReference(act)

Later, proactive attachment message is sent to conversation referenced by conversationRef

err := ht.Adapter.ProactiveMessage(context.TODO(), conversationRef, attachHandler)

In case of no error, this web server responds with a 200 status.