Send message from Postman to Microsoft Bot

Question

I am trying to send a message to a bot I created and published to azure services so that the bot can then start messaging some of its users.

I am trying to make the requests on Postman first so that then I can build a controller for that interaction.

I am doing the following request:

POST https://login.microsoftonline.com/botframework.com/oauth2/v2.0/token
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Body:
grant_type:client_credentials
client_id: my_ms_app_id
client_secret: my_ms_app_secret
scope: https://api.botframework.com/.default

from this I get in the response the Bearer Authorization:

{
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_in": 3599,
  "ext_expires_in": 0,
  "access_token": "eyJ0eXA..."
}

Then I proceed with the following request:

POST https://skype.botframework.com/v3/conversations
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJ0eXAi....

{
    "bot": {
        "id": "i don't have this id so i pass some string",
        "name": "connector controller"
    },
    "isGroup": false,
    "members": [
        {
            "id": "28:...", //ID of the bot I want to send the message to
            "name": "Sp Bot"//Name of the bot I want to talk to
        },
       {
            "id": "i don't have this id so i pass some string",
            "name": "connector controller"
        }
    ],
    "topicName": "News Alert"
}

in response i get the conversation id which matches "id": "i don't have this id so i pass some string": { "id": "i don't have this id so i pass some string" }

Then I proceed with the following POST request:

POST. https://skype.botframework.com/v3/conversations/i don't have this id so i pass some string/activities
Authorization: Bearer eyJ0...
Content-Type:application/json

I get the following response:

400 Bad Request

{
  "error": {
    "code": "ServiceError",
    "message": "The conversationId 29... and bot .... doesn't match a known conversation"
  }
}

It looks like the problem occurs between the second and the 3 post method. It looks like that the https://skype.botframework.com/v3/conversations does not generate a conversation with the bot with Id I entered.

So when I make the final call to the bot: https://skype.botframework.com/v3/conversations/.../activities I always get the serviceError message.

You don't have the id of the bot? I assume your bot is registered in dev.botframework.com so you should have the id of the bot. — Ezequiel Jadib, Apr 07 '17 at 14:25
I do have the id of the bot i want to communicate to. But the whole reason i am doing this is because the app that is going to talk to my bot is not a bot.. but another c# app. Isnt that possible? @Ezequiel — JoaoFilipeClementeMartins, Apr 07 '17 at 17:40
So you have an app, that needs to talk with your bot? So basically, you are creating a custom "channel", right? Have you considered using DirectLine? — Ezequiel Jadib, Apr 10 '17 at 12:26
@EzequielJadib yes i want to create a custom channel. I haven't found info on how to do that through directline — JoaoFilipeClementeMartins, Apr 10 '17 at 15:17

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 10 '17 at 15:58

Based on your comments you are trying to create a custom "channel/client" to talk with the bot.

For doing that, I would recommend taking a look to Direct Line which seems the way to go for achieving your requirement.

I'm not sure which language are you using, so I will send you pointers to both C# and Node.

These are samples that will show you how to create custom client using Direct Line to interact with your bot:

`C#`

`Node.js`

All the samples are using a console app as the "custom channel".

Look for them @ https://github.com/Microsoft/BotBuilder-Samples/tree/v3-sdk-samples — Ezequiel Jadib, Mar 27 '19 at 03:21

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 13 '17 at 00:12

Since you're going to make an app talk to your bot and most likely be using DirectLine after you and Ezequiel chatted, I created a series of screencaps on connecting to the DirectLine endpoint through Potsman. I'm going to assume that you know how to use environmental and global variables in Postman, here are Postman's documentation for other people's benefit. Also, the DirectLine v3.0 docs are here.

Below is a capture of the directline endpoint you would request a token from, {{DLsecret}}'s guts looks like this, Bearer <your-dl-secret>:

Here is an example of the response body you would receive on a valid call:

You may have noticed that I have some test results, in the screenshow below it has five (vs four) tests because I added the test verifying that the conversationId was set in the environment variables:

Here's the second query sent, which contains an actual message:

This is the request body which has the message:

And here is the response body:

Send message from Postman to Microsoft Bot

2 Answers2

`C#`

`Node.js`

Linked