[JS] Proactive messages usage

[Benjiiim]

I'm trying to use app.sendProactiveActivity to send a message to the user (1:1 chat), based on the conversationReference I have stored before.

I would like to add a new route to the backend (different from /api/messages) to send the proactive message when this endpoint is called as a webhook from an external system.

When using only app.sendProactiveActivity with the following code:

// Listen for notification requests
server.post("/notify", async (req, res) => {
  // Get the conversationReference for the user
  var conversationReference = await getConversationReference("userId");

  // Send the proactive message
  await app.sendProactiveActivity(conversationReference, "This is the notification");
})

I'm getting the following error message:

{
    "code": "Internal",
    "message": "Error: You must configure the Application with an 'adapter' before calling Application.continueConversationAsync()"
}

When trying to wrap the call in a adapter.process call this way:

// Listen for notification requests
server.post("/notify", async (req, res) => {
  // Get the conversationReference for the user
  var conversationReference = await getConversationReference("userId");

  // Send the proactive message
  await adapter.process(req, res as any, async (context) => {
    await app.sendProactiveActivity(conversationReference, "This is the notification");
  });
})

I'm getting the following error message:

{
    "code": "Internal",
    "message": "Error: validateAndFixActivity(): missing activity type."
}

What should I do?

Bonus question: in which event would you store the conversationReference for future use?

• In the conversationUpdate membersAdded event (when the bot is installed for the user in a 1:1 chat)?
• For every message received by the bot as done in this Bot Framework for Teams sample? What would be the best event to use for that?
• Elsewhere?

cc @yiqing-zhao and @MuyangAmigo as you seem to work on a RestifyNotiBot :-)

Thanks a lot

[yiqing-zhao]

Hey Benjiiim, for your first error, your app should be configured with an adapter as follows:

// Create adapter.
// See https://aka.ms/about-bot-adapter to learn more about how bots work.
export const adapter = new TeamsAdapter(
  {},
  new ConfigurationServiceClientCredentialFactory({
    MicrosoftAppId: process.env.BOT_ID,
    MicrosoftAppType: process.env.BOT_TYPE,
    MicrosoftAppTenantId: process.env.BOT_TENANT_ID,
    MicrosoftAppPassword: process.env.BOT_PASSWORD,
  })
);

export const app = new Application<ApplicationTurnState>({
  // Adapter and botAppId are required for the Application to send proactive messages.
  adapter: adapter,
  botAppId: config.MicrosoftAppId,
  storage: storage,
});

For your second error, there's no need to wrap the sendProactiveActivity() inside adapter.process() from my experience, just call it directly as follows:

server.post(
  "/api/notification",
  restify.plugins.queryParser(),
  restify.plugins.bodyParser(), // Add more parsers if needed
  async (req, res) => {
    //...
    for (const reference of references) {
      await app.sendProactiveActivity(
        reference,
        "Proactive message from RestifyNotiBot!"
      );
    }
    res.json({});
  }
);

For the bonus questions, our current project stores the conversation reference when the bot is installed (in the conversationUpdate membersAdded event). In this way, the bot could send the message whenever it wishes even the user does not send a message to the bot, working just like a notification bot. However, if your case is something like the QA bot, it is also a good way to choose the second one as the botframework sample does.

[Benjiiim]

Thanks so much for your detailed answer.
My app object was missing the adapter and the botAppId properties indeed.
app.sendProactiveActivity works well for me as well now.
Thanks again.

[heyitsaamir]

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