How to use this Bots and Messaging Extensions RapydPay app

A Messaging Extension allows users to interact with your web service while composing messages in the Microsoft Teams client. Users can invoke your web service to assist message composition, from the message compose box, or from the search bar.

Messaging Extensions are implemented on top of the Bot support architecture within Teams.

A bot, chatbot, or conversational bot is an app that responds to simple commands sent in chat and replies in meaningful ways. Examples of bots in everyday use include: bots that notify about build failures, bots that provide information about the weather or bus schedules, or provide travel information. A bot interaction can be a quick question and answer, or it can be a complex conversation. Being a cloud application, a bot can provide valuable and secure access to cloud services and corporate resources.

This is a simple hello world application with both Bot and Messaging extension capabilities.

Prerequisites

• NodeJS

• An M365 account. If you do not have M365 account, apply one from M365 developer program

• For this Demo and local setup use the credentials provided on Devpost in the additional info section: (email: password)

• Setup environment variables as requested or contact us for more info on the setup.

• Teams Toolkit Visual Studio Code Extension version after 1.55 or TeamsFx CLI

Debug

• From Visual Studio Code: Start debugging the project by hitting the F5 key in Visual Studio Code.
• Alternatively use the Run and Debug Activity Panel in Visual Studio Code and click the Run and Debug green arrow button.
• From TeamsFx CLI: Start debugging the project by executing the command teamsfx preview --local in your project directory.

Edit the manifest

You can find the Teams app manifest in templates/appPackage folder. The folder contains two manifest files:

• manifest.local.template.json: Manifest file for Teams app running locally.
• manifest.remote.template.json: Manifest file for Teams app running remotely (After deployed to Azure).

Both files contain template arguments with {...} statements which will be replaced at build time. You may add any extra properties or permissions you require to this file. See the schema reference for more information.

Preview

Once the provisioning and deployment steps are finished, you can preview your app:

• From Visual Studio Code

  1. Open the Run and Debug Activity Panel.
  2. Select Launch Remote (Edge) or Launch Remote (Chrome) from the launch configuration drop-down.
  3. Press the Play (green arrow) button to launch your app - now running remotely from Azure.

• From TeamsFx CLI: execute teamsfx preview --remote in your project directory to launch your application.

Validate manifest file

To check that your manifest file is valid:

• From Visual Studio Code: open the command palette and select: Teams: Validate manifest file.
• From TeamsFx CLI: run command teamsfx validate in your project directory.

Package

• From Visual Studio Code: open the Teams Toolkit and click Zip Teams metadata package or open the command palette and select Teams: Zip Teams metadata package.
• Alternatively, from the command line run teamsfx package in the project directory.