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Channel and group chat conversations with a bot

Important

The code samples in this section are based on version 4.6 and later versions of the Bot Framework SDK. If you are looking for documentation for earlier versions, see the bots - v3 SDK section in the Legacy SDKs folder of the documentation.

To install the Microsoft Teams bot in a team or group chat, add the teams or groupchat scope to your bot. This allows all members of the conversation to interact with your bot. After the bot is installed, it has access to metadata about the conversation, such as the list of conversation members. Also, when it's installed in a team, the bot has access to details about that team and the full list of channels.

Bots in a group or channel only receive messages when they're mentioned @botname. They don't receive any other messages sent to the conversation. The bot must be @mentioned directly. Your bot doesn't receive a message when the team or channel is mentioned, or when someone replies to a message from your bot without @mentioning it.

Note

  • RSC for all chat messages is available only in public developer preview.
  • Using resource-specific consent (RSC), a bot can receive all channel messages in teams that it's installed in without being @mentioned. For more information, see receive all channel messages with RSC.
  • Posting a message or Adaptive Card to a private channel isn't supported.

See the following video to learn about channel and group chat conversations with a bot:


Design guidelines

Unlike personal chats, in group chats and channels, your bot must provide a quick introduction. You must follow these and more bot design guidelines. For more information on how to design bots in Teams, see how to design bot conversations in channels and chats.

Now, you can create new conversation threads and easily manage different conversations in channels.

Create new conversation threads

When your bot is installed in a team, you must create a new conversation thread rather than reply to an existing one. At times, it's difficult to differentiate between two conversations. If the conversation is threaded, it's easier to organize and manage different conversations in channels. This is a form of proactive messaging.

Next, you can retrieve mentions using the entities object and add mentions to your messages using the Mention object.

Work with mentions

Every message to your bot from a group or channel contains an @mention with its name in the message text. Your bot can also retrieve other users mentioned in a message and add mentions to any messages it sends. Bots in group chats enable user mentions using @mention; however, they don’t support @everyone for mentions.

You must also strip out the @mentions from the content of the message your bot receives.

Retrieve mentions

Mentions are returned in the entities object in payload and contain both the unique ID of the user and the name of the user mentioned. The text of the message also includes the mention, such as <at>@John Smith<at>. However, don't rely on the text in the message to retrieve any information about the user. It's possible for the person sending the message to alter it. Therefore, use the entities object.

You can retrieve all mentions in the message by calling the GetMentions function in the Bot Builder SDK, which returns an array of Mention objects.

The following code shows an example of retrieving mentions:

protected override async Task OnMessageActivityAsync(ITurnContext<IMessageActivity> turnContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    // Resolves the mentions from the entities activity.
    Mention[] mentions = turnContext.Activity.GetMentions();
    if(mentions != null)
    {
        ChannelAccount firstMention = mentions[0].Mentioned;

        // Sends a message activity to the sender of the incoming activity.
        await turnContext.SendActivityAsync($"Hello {firstMention.Name}");
    }
    else
    {
        // Sends a message activity to the sender of the incoming activity.
        await turnContext.SendActivityAsync("Aw, no one was mentioned.");
    }
}

Add mentions to your messages

There are two types of mentions:

Note

User mention and tag mention is supported for both text message and Adaptive Card.

User mention

Your bot can mention other users in messages posted in channels.

The Mention object has two properties that you must set using the following:

  • Include @username in the message text.
  • Include the mention object inside the entities collection.

The Bot Framework SDK provides helper methods and objects to create mentions.

The following code shows an example of adding mentions to your messages:

protected override async Task OnMessageActivityAsync(ITurnContext<IMessageActivity> turnContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    var mention = new Mention
    {
        Mentioned = turnContext.Activity.From,
        Text = $"<at>{XmlConvert.EncodeName(turnContext.Activity.From.Name)}</at>",
        Type = "mention",
    };

    // Returns a simple text message.
    var replyActivity = MessageFactory.Text($"Hello {mention.Text}.");
    replyActivity.Entities = new List<Entity> { mention };

    // Sends an activity to the sender of the incoming activity.
    await turnContext.SendActivityAsync(replyActivity, cancellationToken);
}