03.welcome-users

welcome-users sample

Bot Framework v4 welcome users bot sample

This bot has been created using Microsoft Bot Framework, is shows how to welcome a user when join the conversation. The welcoming pattern shown in this bot is applicable for personal one-to-one conversation with bots.

Prerequisites

• Node.js version 8.5 or higher

  # determine node version
  node --version

To try this sample

• Clone the repository

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

• In a terminal, navigate to samples/javascript_nodejs/03.welcome-users

  cd samples/javascript_nodejs/03.welcome-users

• Install modules

  npm install

• Start the bot

  npm start

Testing the bot using Bot Framework Emulator v4

Microsoft Bot Framework Emulator is a desktop application that allows bot developers to test and debug their bots on localhost or running remotely through a tunnel.

• Install the Bot Framework Emulator version 4.2.0 or greater from here

Connect to the bot using Bot Framework Emulator v4

• Launch Bot Framework Emulator
• File -> Open Bot Configuration
• Navigate to samples/javascript_nodejs/03.welcome-users folder
• Select welcome-users.bot file

ConversationUpdate Activity Type

The ConversationUpdate Activity describes a change in conversation members, for example when a new user (and/or) a bot joins the conversation. The channel sends this activity when a user (and/or) bot joins the conversation. It is recommended that you test your bot behavior on the target channel.

Bots that are added directly by a user, are mostly personal (1:1) conversation bots. It is a best practice to send a welcome message to introduce the bot tell a bit about its functionality. To do this, ensure that your bot responds to the ConversationUpdate message. Use the membersAdded field to identify the list of channel participants (bots or users) that were added to the conversation.

Your bot may proactively send a welcome message to a personal chat the first time a user initiates a personal chat with your bot. Use UserState to persist a flag indicating first user interaction with a bot.

Deploy the bot to Azure

Prerequisites

• Azure Deployment Prerequisites

Provision a Bot with Azure Bot Service

After creating the bot and testing it locally, you can deploy it to Azure to make it accessible from anywhere. To deploy your bot to Azure:

# login to Azure
az login

# set you Azure subscription
az account set --subscription "<azure-subscription>"

# provision Azure Bot Services resources to host your bot
msbot clone services --name "<your_bot_name>" --code-dir "." --location westus --sdkLanguage "Node" --folder deploymentScripts/msbotClone --verbose

Publishing Changes to Azure Bot Service

As you make changes to your bot running locally, and want to deploy those change to Azure Bot Service, you can publish those change using either publish.cmd if you are on Windows or ./publish if you are on a non-Windows platform. The following is an example of publishing

# run the publish helper (non-Windows) to update Azure Bot Service.  Use publish.cmd if running on Windows
./publish

Getting Additional Help Deploying 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

• Bot Framework Documentation
• Bot Basics
• Azure Bot Service Introduction
• Azure Bot Service Documentation
• Bot State
• Write directly to storage
• Managing conversation and user state
• Azure CLI
• msbot CLI
• Azure Portal
• Language Understanding using LUIS
• Restify
• dotenv