Setting Up the Microsoft Teams Integration for CloudRadial Chat

CloudRadial Chat can use Microsoft Teams as the chat interface for your internal team.

You can connect the system to your Teams tenant using a Connector. Users can interact with Chat directly, but it is most useful when connected to a Team and Channel within Teams. For that reason, it is helpful to create any Teams or Channels you want to use with ChatStyle before the installation.

We will follow 3 main steps to fully connect your Chat to Teams.

• Step 1: Setting Up the Microsoft Teams Connector
• Step 2: Associating Chat with Specific Teams/Channels
• Step 3: Making Chat Available within Teams
• Additional Notes and Configuration

Step 1: Setting Up the Microsoft Teams Connector

To create a Microsoft Teams Connector for your internal team in CloudRadial Chat:

1. Navigate to Connectors from the left-hand feature set menu
2. Depending on your setup, you may see one of the following screens after clicking on Connectors.

When setting up your initial Connector, select "Internal" and skip to step 3. 

When creating a new Connector, select "Microsoft Teams" from the list of available Connectors, and skip to step 3.

3. Feel free to update the "Name" and "Description" fields, and then click the button on this page labeled Grant Admin Consent 

• • Clicking this button will open a Browser window allowing you to approve CloudRadial Chat as a Teams application for your tenant. Note: You must log in as a Microsoft 365 user with administrative rights to the tenant.

4. Click the button labeled Approve to approve the application, Note: Remember to authenticate using an Administrator account for your tenant).

Once you approve the application, you will be returned to the Connector page. The button label will change to read Approved for ____, replacing the blank with your tenant name.

Step 2: Associating Chat with Specific Teams/Channels

Once the connector is configured, you can further define and associate incoming chat messages with a particular Team and Channel in the Internal tenant. To do so:

1. Navigate to Settings from the left-hand feature set menu
2. Locate the Chat Settings option set
3. Locate the six fields that read as follows:
   • How do you want to create new threads for existing customer chat?
     
     • What Team?
     • What Channel?
   • How do you want to create new threads for sales / new customer chat?
     
     • What Team?
     • What Channel?

• Note that the dropdowns will populate the list of Teams/Channels based on the tenant that CloudRadial Chat is connected to. If you are not seeing a populated dropdown list, ensure that your connection to your M365 tenant is secured with an admin-level account.
  
  
• Note that the Teams/Channel values are cached, so if you want to reconfigure Chat to a new Team or Channel you create, you must first go back to the Internal connector, select Save again, and then select the option to Refresh Channels. 
  
  
  
  This will update the cached team and channel lists. You can then go to Settings and they will be available in the dropdowns.

Step 3: Making Chat Available within Teams

In addition to configuring Chat for Teams, you must also take a few additional steps inside of Teams itself. First, you must be sure to add the manifest of the application to the tenant.

1. Inside Microsoft Teams, on the bottom left pane, select the Apps icon
2. In the list of applications, locate and select the button at the bottom labeled Manage your apps
   
                                
   
   
3. Once selected, click the Upload an App link that appears at the top of the window
   
   
   • A dialog will appear with a button labeled Upload a custom app. Select the manifest for CloudRadial Chat Internal Teams bot, which can be downloaded here. It is a .ZIP file that contains a description of the bot and the commands it supports.
     
     
   • You can also upload the manifest file into your tenant via the Teams Admin Portal, which will allow you to approve the app and deploy it to multiple users in your tenant. Click here for a Microsoft article on how to use the Admin Center to deploy the app.

Once you have uploaded and accepted the application, you must also add it to the specific team you want to interact with.

1. Return to the Apps icon on the bottom left pane and select it
2. Locate and select CloudRadial Chat in the list of applications
3. The dialog that opens up will have a button labeled Open with a dropdown arrow next to it.
   • Click on the dropdown arrow and select the Add to a Team option. You can now select the Team you want to connect to for handling chat and chatops commands. You can repeat this step for as many teams as you need to connect to Chat.

Additional Notes and Configuration

• This connector is already associated with a CloudRadial Chat channel also named Internal. This Chat channel will communicate with your internal team when actions happen in the system, such as a new chat.