50.teams-messaging-extensions-search

Teams Messaging Extensions Search

Messaging Extensions are a special kind of Microsoft Teams application that is supported by the Bot Framework v4.

There are two basic types of Messaging Extension in Teams: Search-based and Action-based. This sample illustrates how to build a Search-based Messaging Extension.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Teams is installed and you have an account
• NodeJS
• 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.

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/botbuilder-samples.git

2. In a terminal, navigate to samples/javascript_nodejs/50.teams-messaging-extensions-search

3. Install modules

   npm install

4. Run ngrok - point to port 3978

   ngrok http -host-header=rewrite 3978

5. Create Bot Framework registration resource in Azure

   • Use the current https URL you were given by running ngrok. Append with the path /api/messages used by this sample
   • Ensure that you've enabled the Teams Channel
   • If you don't have an Azure account you can use this Bot Framework registration

6. Update the .env 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.)

7. Run your bot at the command line:

   npm start

8. 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")

9. Teams show now let you search for npm packages and return a card representing the name of that package.

Interacting with the bot in Teams

Note this manifest.json specified that the feature will be available from both the compose and commandBox areas of Teams. Please refer to Teams documentation for more details.

In Teams, the command bar is located at the top of the window. When you at mention the bot what you type is forwarded (as you type) to the bot for processing. By way of illustration, this sample uses the text it receives to query the npmjs package store.

There is a secondary, drill down, event illustrated in this sample: clicking on the results from the initial query will result in the bot receiving another event.

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

• How Microsoft Teams bots work