Microsoft Teams Send Message Activity¶

Introduction¶

A Microsoft Teams Send Message activity, using its Microsoft Teams connection, sends a message to a specific team and channel at Microsoft Teams and is intended to be used as a target to consume data in an operation.

Create a Microsoft Teams Send Message Activity¶

An instance of a Microsoft Teams Send Message activity is created from a Microsoft Teams connection using its Send Message activity type.

To create an instance of an activity, drag the activity type to the design canvas or copy the activity type and paste it on the design canvas. For details, see Creating an Activity Instance in Component Reuse.

An existing Microsoft Teams Send Message activity can be edited from these locations:

• The design canvas (see Component Actions Menu in Design Canvas).
• The project pane's Components tab (see Component Actions Menu in Project Pane Components Tab).

Configure a Microsoft Teams Send Message Activity¶

Follow these steps to configure a Microsoft Teams Send Message activity:

• Step 1: Enter a Name and Select a Team
  Provide a name for the activity and select a team.

• Step 2: Select a Channel
  Select a channel.

• Step 3: Review the Data Schemas
  Any request or response schemas generated from the endpoint are displayed.

Step 1: Enter a Name and Select a Team¶

In this step, provide a name for the activity and select a team. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Name: Enter a name to identify the activity. The name must be unique for each Microsoft Teams Send Message activity and must not contain forward slashes / or colons :.

• Select a Team: This section displays teams available in the Microsoft Teams endpoint.

  • Selected Team: After a team is selected, it is listed here.

  • Search: Enter any part of the team name into the search box to filter the list of teams. The search is not case-sensitive. If teams are already displayed within the table, the table results are filtered in real time with each keystroke. To reload teams from the endpoint when searching, enter search criteria and then refresh, as described below.

  • Refresh: Click the refresh icon or the word Refresh to reload teams from the Microsoft Teams endpoint. This may be useful if teams have been added to Microsoft Teams. This action refreshes all metadata used to build the table of teams displayed in the configuration.

  • Selecting a Team: Within the table, click anywhere on a row to select a team. Only one team can be selected. The information available for each team is fetched from the Microsoft Teams endpoint:

    • Name: The name of the team.

    • Description: The description of the team. If a team does not have a description or has a description consisting of whitespace, the connector will use the team name as the team description. This will not affect the schema, execution, or response returned.

  Tip

  If the table does not populate with available teams, the Microsoft Teams connection may not be successful. Ensure you are connected by reopening the connection and retesting the credentials.

• Save & Exit: If enabled, click to save the configuration for this step and close the activity configuration.

• Next: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and continue to the next step. The configuration will not be saved until you click the Finished button on the last step.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Step 2: Select a Channel¶

In this step, select a channel. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Select a Channel: This section displays channels available in the Microsoft Teams endpoint.

  • Selected Team: The team selected in the previous step is listed here.

  • Selected Channel: After a channel is selected, it is listed here.

  • Search: Enter any part of the channel name into the search box to filter the list of channels. The search is not case-sensitive. If channels are already displayed within the table, the table results are filtered in real time with each keystroke. To reload channels from the endpoint when searching, enter search criteria and then refresh, as described below.

  • Refresh: Click the refresh icon or the word Refresh to reload channels from the Microsoft Teams endpoint. This may be useful if channels have been added to Microsoft Teams. This action refreshes all metadata used to build the table of channels displayed in the configuration.

  • Selecting a Channel: Within the table, click anywhere on a row to select a channel. Only one channel can be selected. The information available for each channel is fetched from the Microsoft Teams endpoint:

    • Name: The name of the channel.

    • Description: The description of the channel. If the channel does not have a description, the channel name is repeated as the description.

  Tip

  If the table does not populate with available channels, the Microsoft Teams connection may not be successful. Ensure you are connected by reopening the connection and retesting the credentials.

• Optional Settings: Click to reveal an additional optional Properties setting:

  • Content Type: 'HTML': Select to specify that the content type of the messages is html.

• Back: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and return to the previous step.

• Next: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and continue to the next step. The configuration will not be saved until you click the Finished button on the last step.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Step 3: Review the Data Schemas¶

Any request or response schemas generated from the endpoint are displayed. Each user interface element of this step is described below.

• Data Schemas: These data schemas are inherited by adjacent transformations and are displayed again during transformation mapping.

  Note

  Data supplied in a transformation takes precedence over the activity configuration.

  The Microsoft Teams connector uses the Microsoft Graph REST API v1.0. Refer to the API documentation for information on the schema nodes and fields. In addition, take note:

  • Attaching files: In the request, attaching files larger than 4MB will cause the operation to fail and errors to be written to the log. As a workaround, split a ZIP file into smaller, separate files and send multiple messages.

  • Sending HTML messages: In the request, the message field supports HTML when the optional setting of step 2 is selected, and all text should be properly formatted HTML. Line breaks that are to be maintained should be replaced with the HTML <br> tag. For example, you can send an HTML message that resolves to multiple lines using text such as:

    <b>NOTE:</b> Do not ignore this message!<br>More information to follow.
    

  • Additional fields returned: In the response, additional fields may be returned with a warning. Those warnings can be ignored.

• Refresh: Click the refresh icon or the word Refresh to regenerate schemas from the Microsoft Teams endpoint. This action also regenerates a schema in other locations throughout the project where the same schema is referenced, such as in an adjacent transformation.

• Edit: Click the edit icon above each data schema to enter the edit mode for that data schema. The editor allows you to add, delete, and reorganize nodes and fields and change their data types. All occurrences of nodes and fields is set as [0, 1] cardinality. Changes made to the data schemas must be acceptable to the endpoint and should be made only after consulting any available documentation for the endpoint.

  Note

  Any changes are made directly to the activity without confirmation. If you need to reverse or reset any changes, either remake them while in edit mode or recreate the activity using a new instance of the activity.

• Back: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and return to the previous step.

• Finished: Click to save the configuration for all steps and close the activity configuration.

• Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. With the exception of changes made while in a data schema edit mode, a message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Next Steps¶

After configuring a Microsoft Teams Send Message activity, complete the configuration of the operation by adding and configuring other activities, transformations, or scripts as operation steps. You can also configure the operation settings, which include the ability to chain operations together that are in the same or different workflows.

Menu actions for an activity are accessible from the project pane and the design canvas. For details, see Activity Actions Menu in Connector Basics.

Microsoft Teams Send Message activities can be used as a target with these operation patterns:

• Transformation Pattern
• Two-transformation Pattern (as the first or second target)

To use the activity with scripting functions, write the data to a temporary location and then use that temporary location in the scripting function.

When ready, deploy and run the operation and validate behavior by checking the operation logs.