How to side-load your bot into Microsoft Teams

Once you get your bot stood up in Azure and the AtBot Admin Portal, it’s probably time to add your bot to Microsoft Teams so you can begin testing with real people and build off the foundation you’ve laid. You’ve got two options: you can publish your bot to the Teams App Store so it’s available to everyone internally or you can side-load your bot Team-by-Team. This article covers the latter process.

Side-loading a bot is pretty easy, but we have some best practices for you to consider as you go through the process. Note that this guidance will work for any bot created in Azure Bot Services, not just AtBot. But it will only work for AtBot Enterprise Bots, not Web Bots or the free version of AtBot.

Once your bot exists in both Azure Bot Service and the AtBot Admin Portal, do the following:

1. Enable side-loading

If it’s not already, enable side-loading at the tenant level in Microsoft Teams. An Office 365 administrator will have to perform this step.

2. Be the owner of a Team

Technically, you may not need to be an owner of a Team, but usually security settings are in place such that to add a bot to a Team, you’ll have to be the Team owner.

If you’re not the Team owner, you could always ask the Team owner to perform the following tasks or you could create a Team specifically for adding the bot.

3 Download your bot package

From admin.atbot.io, click Bot Management > Enterprise Bots > [Your bot name] > Download Teams Bot Package. Remember where you save your bot package.

4 Add your bot in Teams

Open Microsoft Teams and browse to the Team where you’ll be side-loading the bot. Next to the Team name, click the Ellipses (⋯) > Manage team > Apps tab > Upload a custom app > [choose your downloaded app].

From a channel, @mention the bot and log in if requested.

Your bot is now side-loaded and available in that Team as well as to all Team Members via private message!

Frequently Asked Questions

What if I don’t see “upload a custom app” in Teams?

That means that 1) side-loading is not enabled at the tenant level and/or 2) you’re not the owner of the Team. Ensure side-loading is enabled at the tenant level and that you’re the owner of the Team.

Can I permission-protect my bot so only certain people can use it?

Not directly, but you can (and probably should) permission-protect the Skills using Azure Active Directory groups through the AtBot Admin Portal. This is one of the major benefits of AtBot.

While every user in your tenant can search for and chat with your new bot in private chat, they will only be able to run Skills that you’ve provided permission to in the AtBot Admin Portal.

Does it matter which Team I add the bot to?

No. Once you side-load your bot into a Team, the bot is now available in that Team and to all users in your tenant via private chat. The bot is not available in other Teams until the bot is explicitly added by the owner of that Team.

If you work for a team that rolls out all the bots internally, it may make sense to have a separate Team specifically for launching bots since the process of side-loading the bot generally includes a new conversation in the Team, and that conversation is usually irrelevant (and may be distracting) to the Team at work.

Can I limit who can add bots?

To an extent. The Team owner can disable the ability of non-owners to add bots to a Team. This is on a Team-by-Team basis. To the right of the Team name, click the Ellipses (⋯) > Manage team > Settings tab > expand Member permissions > uncheck Allow members to add and remove apps.

Once Microsoft releases Teams Templates, an Office 365 admin may be able to set this by default for all new Teams.

Beware: If you disable side-loading at the tenant level, no side-loaded bot will work at all in the tenant.

AtBot brings AI within reach

AtBot is the premiere bot-as-a-service solution for the Microsoft cloud. Built completely within Azure, AtBot is your out-of-the-box, easy-to-configure bot for Teams, SharePoint, or the web. Teach AtBot tasks using Power Automate, make him your corporate source of knowledge with QnA Maker, help him understand almost anything your colleagues could ask thanks to LUIS, and manage his features with the AtBot Admin Portal. Get going with AtBot Free or start your free trial of AtBot Premium today.

AtBot

AtBot is the premier bot-as-a-service solution for the Microsoft cloud. AtBot puts AI within reach.

Matt Wade

Written by

Microsoft MVP • Office 365 & Chatbot Guru • VP of Client Engagement for AtBot • NY→USVI→DC→NY

AtBot

AtBot is the premier bot-as-a-service solution for the Microsoft cloud. AtBot puts AI within reach.

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