java

page_type	description	products	languages	extensions	urlFragment
sample	This sample app demonstrate is how to start a thread in a specific Team's channel using Bot Framework v4.	office-teams office office-365	Java	contentType createdDate samples 12/12/2019 13:38:25 PM	officedev-microsoft-teams-samples-bot-initiate-thread-in-channel-java

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.

Included Features

• Bots
• Adaptive Cards
• Initiate thread in Teams Channel

Interaction with bot

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

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

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. Update the resources/application.properties file configuration in your project, 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.)

5. From the root of this project folder: (samples/bot-initiate-thread-in-channel/java)

   • Open a terminal and build the sample using mvn package command
   • Install the packages in the local cache by using mvn install command in a terminal
   • Run it by using java -jar .\target\bot-teams-start-new-thread-sample.jar command in a terminal

6. 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)
   • 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 TeamsAppManifest 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

Running the sample

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

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

Further reading

• Spring Boot
• Maven Plugin for Azure App Service
• Bot Framework Documentation
• Bot Basics
• Azure Bot Service Introduction
• Azure Bot Service Documentation
• Azure for Java cloud developers
• Get Channel Details