Bot Framework Community Focus – February 2020

One of the best things about working on the Bot Framework here at Microsoft is the phenomenal community that surrounds the SDKs, tools and platforms. Whether it is contributing to the core Microsoft repositories, working as part of the Bot Framework Community GitHub project, building other open source extensions, or helping to educate other developers via online and in-person content….

Using Adaptive Cards with the Microsoft Bot Framework

Introduction Adaptive Cards are a way to present a self-contained UI to a user within a larger UI such as a chat client. They incorporate almost all of the functionality of the Bot Framework’s rich cards, and they also provide some special functionality of their own. They are supported in Web Chat, Cortana, and Microsoft Teams, and can even be used outside….

Microsoft discontinues the ability to create new SDK V3 Bots. Deployed V3 bots will continue to run without interruption.

Microsoft Bot Framework SDK V4 was released in September 2018, and since then we have shipped a few dot-release improvements. As announced previously, the V3 SDK is being retired with final lifetime support ending on December 31st, 2019. Existing V3 bot workloads will continue to run without interruption. We have no plans to disrupt any running workloads. Accordingly, Microsoft will discontinue the….

Using the Facebook Messenger Handover Protocol with the Microsoft Bot Framework

The Facebook Messenger Platform offers a handover protocol that allows your Facebook page to pass “thread control” between primary and secondary receivers. A thread can be thought of like a Facebook Messenger conversation in this case, and the idea of thread control is that one receiver is the “thread owner” that receives all messages and can reply to them or….

Bot Creation User Experience Survey

Hello Bot Users, We’re looking for feedback on your experience creating bots using Bot Framework. As such we’ve put together a short survey consisting of 10 questions that we hope you will complete for us. It should only take a minute of your time and will be very useful for our team as we continue to improve and innovate. Survey….

Debugging Your Locally Hosted v4 Bot Using Azure Relays

This blog explains how to set up an Azure Relay resource, create the necessary relays in Visual Studio, and connect your locally hosted v4 bot for debugging across the various channels available in the Bot Framework ecosystem. Prerequisites: An Azure account (create a new account here) Access to Visual Studio .Net Framework 4.7 or .Net Core 2.1 installed (project dependent) Access….

Bot Analytics: Behind the Scenes

Application Insights is a great way to gather analytic information from all kinds of applications, including bots. An Application Insights resource in Azure provides an Analytics tool that allows you to run queries using the Kusto Query Language, also known as Log Analytics Query Language.   To get an idea of what queries you might want to run for a bot, you can switch….

Announcing Bot Framework SDK and Tools 4.1 Release

We are excited to announce the release of Bot Framework SDK version 4.1 that includes General Availability of the Bot Framework Emulator, the Web Chat V4, and version 4.1 of the C# and JavaScript SDKs. With version 4.1 of the SDK and tools, the team is focusing on periodical releases of the SDK and tools. Streamline testing and integration using….

Announcement: Azure Bot Service Enforcing Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2

On December 4th, 2018, the Azure Bot Service will require all connections to be secured using Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2. This enforcement is critical to providing the best possible security for your data. Microsoft, the Payment Card Industry (PCI), and the entire Internet community, are moving away from TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1, which have been shown to be….

BotBuilder Community is making it easier to build great bots!

The Microsoft Bot Framework communities on Github, StackOverflow, our MVPs, and others have been fantastic partners as we’ve matured from a hackathon project to the generally available (GA) Azure Bot Service. It was feedback from these communities that led us to our latest Bot Framework tools and SDKs release; built from the ground up to integrate with a developer’s workflow….