The MS Teams communication extension provides a bot which can be triggered from Microsoft Teams to request information from the i-net HelpDesk server. The bot is connected using Outgoing Webhooks. Incoming Webhooks, provided by Microsoft Teams, can be set up for usage with the task planner - to send status or notification messages.

The Microsoft Teams bot allows to request information from the i-net HelpDesk server. The list of available commands is returned if the bot is triggered without a specific command - e.g. using @botname.

Note: For connecting the i-net HelpDesk server with a Microsoft Teams outgoing webhook it is required that at least the server context /bot/msteams is publicly available. For testing purposes you can use ngrok.

The process of creating a bot connection is described here in addition to the support document by Microsoft:

1. Login to Microsoft Teams
2. Select "Manage Team" from the three-dot-menu of your team
3. Select "App" and then "Create an outgoing webhook"
4. Fill in the requested information. It depends on how your server is available from the internet, which address to enter. In general it will be: https://your-server.com/bot/msteams. You should check, that this address is available from the internet beforehand or the bot registration will fail.
   • Note: It is possible to modify the URL later if it changes.
5. Select "Create". If successful you will be presented a secret token that has to be entered in the i-net HelpDesk server.
   1. Go to the Users and Groups Manager and select the user that you want the webhook to use and grant access for. The user does not need a login entry.
   2. Make sure, that the user has the Token Authentication. If newly added you have Save and re-open the user settings dialog
   3. Check other required permissions for the user which may be used by the bot
   4. Select the Access Tokens panel and add an HMAC Token entry
   5. Paste the secret token
   6. Check the permissions the respective components

A Webhook is an alternative way of sending information to MS Teams. Webhooks are used, e.g. by the Task Planner to send notification messages to a given channel.

The configuration of incoming webhooks allows to have them re-used at various places and by the users. A web hook is created by a server administrator in Microsoft Teams.

1. Select "Connectors" from the three-dot-menu of a channel
2. Search for incoming in the panel and select "Add"
3. Configure the webhook with an icon and name in the same panel and select "Create" at the end
4. After the webhook was created, copy the displayed webhook URL. It has to be added to the i-net HelpDesk server configuration.