Introduction
Azure bot registration, sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. In this article, we’ll show you how to do it. You actually just register your bot in MS Azure Portal, that’s all. This is important so you could use your bot on your chat platforms like MS Teams, Slack, Skype and others.
Bot channel registration
Bot channel registration, in Azure Portal, is where you register your bot and connect your bot to desired channels. Channels are really just your chat platforms like MS Teams, Slack or Skype. Bellow is a list of fields you have to populate with your information. We also put some info in brackets to show you the best and free way to do it.
Bot name
Subscription type (pay-as-you-go / free trial)
Resource group
Location (Nearest to you)
Pricint tier (S1 / F0)
Messaging endpoint
Application insights (on / off)
Microsoft App ID and Password (automatic / manual)
When you click create, and you’ll see your bot registration. With free tier (F0), you have 10000 free messages a month. Also, the Azure portal itself isn’t free, but it has a 12 months free period.
We chose Manual generation of App ID and Secret so we can copy them to a safe location to use later. They are needed for remote testing and to install your bot in your chat platform.
Channels
As you can see, there are a lot of channels that you can register your bot for. You can also register your bot to multiple channels or register more bots on one channel. All this and many more options and features are handled by Azure portal so you must use it. Whether you like it or not.
When you complete your Azure bot registration, you can install your bot in your chatting platform. We’ve installed it in MS Teams and it’s really easy.
Install bot in MS Teams
After channel registration, you need to go to App studio in MS Teams and install your bot from there. For that, you’ll need your bot’s manifest and icons that will represent your bot in a chat. You need to define your app providing your App ID, App name, Description, Version and so on. You can find your App ID in Azure Portal if you haven’t saved it. See the picture bellow for details on how to define your app in Teams. Remember, your bot is your app.
After the installation
When you’ve installed your bot in Teams, you need to add it to a group channel that you want your bot to listen to messages. Alternatively, you can talk to your bot one on one as you would with any other person in Teams.
Remember that you need your App ID and App password in your .env file in your bot in order for it to work in Teams.
Also remember to mention your bot in group channel when you want it to respond. Bots don’t listen to all messages by default in group channels, but they do in one on one conversation. You mention your bot with @botName, like you’d mention any other user in the chat.