I’m having an issue with a teams chat bot application that is trying to send a proactive message to let users know their password is expiring. The app is created using the teams toolkit in Nodejs and runs from the an azure function like they do. This all works fine.
The problem comes in when the app gets updated and redeployed. For some reason after updating the app it is no longer able to send a message to any users unless they first engage with the app by sending it a message first. This is obviously not a good solution; we can’t have every user in our organization find the app in teams and send it “hello”.
What is the recommended way to handle this situation? How do you update a chat bot app without losing the ability to send a message?
Don’t change your app ID: The app ID serves as a unique identifier for your bot app. Changing the app ID will result in a new installation and the loss of installation information. Increment your app’s version number: Updating the version number of your app signals to Teams that it is an updated version of the existing app. This allows Teams to retain the installation information.
Don’t select “Add a new app”: When submitting changes to your app in Partner Center, make sure not to select “Add a new app” option. Instead, go to your app’s page and submit the changes there. This ensures that the existing installation information is preserved.