Setting Up Your Teams Service Channel in CloudRadial Chat

A Teams Service Channel connects CloudRadial Chat to your MSP's Microsoft Teams environment so your agents can handle Live Chat conversations without leaving Teams. When an end user escalates to Live Chat, agents see the request in Teams and can pick up the conversation from there.

The setup is similar to deploying a Teams Client Channel, but with one important addition: you designate a specific Team and channel in your Teams environment where Chat routes Live Chat requests. Chat adds a Chat Settings tab to that channel where your agents can see the live chat queue, available operators, and their status.

Agent management is handled entirely through Teams team membership. When you save the Service Channel, Chat reads the members of the designated Team and creates operator records for each one. As you add or remove people from that Team, Chat automatically updates the operator list to match. There's no separate user management step in the Chat admin portal: if someone is a member of the Team, they're an operator.

You can create multiple Service Channels using the same Teams app in the same tenant. Each Service Channel points to a different Team, giving you independent control over which agents serve which clients. For example, you might have a general Service Channel for most clients and a separate Service Channel for a high-value client, each routed to a different Team with different agent membership.

• Prerequisites
• How Operator Management Works
• Verification
• Troubleshooting

Prerequisites

• A CloudRadial Chat account with the onboarding wizard completed (the wizard walks you through creating your initial Service Channel; these steps cover creating additional Service Channels or setting one up manually).
• For your MSP's Teams tenant: a Global Administrator (or equivalent) who can grant admin consent, access to the Teams Admin Center to upload the app, and a Team and channel in your Teams environment where you want Live Chat requests to appear.

Step 1: Create the Service Channel

1. Navigate to Channels in the sidebar.
2. Click Add New Service Channel.
3. Select Teams as the Service Channel type.
4. Fill in the channel details: Channel name (required, internal name for organizing your Service Channels), Avatar/icon (required, image displayed to agents), and Brand color (optional hex code).

The channel name is for your own organization within the Chat admin portal. The name that agents see in Teams (the app name) is configured separately under Settings > Visuals. This is because multiple Service Channels can share the same Teams app in the same tenant, so the app name is set once at the account level rather than per channel.

Step 2: Get Admin Consent

Your MSP's Global Administrator must grant permissions to the CloudRadial Chat app in your own Teams tenant.

1. Click Update Tenant on the channel page.
2. Open the approval URL in a browser session signed into your MSP's tenant with a Global Administrator account.
3. Review and approve the permissions.

Since this is your own tenant, you likely have Global Admin access or can get it quickly. If not, use the Send Instruction Email option to send the consent link to your admin.

Important: the person granting consent must be a Global Administrator. If the admin uses PIM (Privileged Identity Management), they must activate their Global Admin role before visiting the approval URL. Conditional Access policies may also require consent from a compliant device. The permissions requested are the same as for a Teams Client Channel.

Step 3: Designate the Team and Channel

Once the tenant is set and permissions are granted, the Team and Channel dropdowns populate with your Teams environment's available options. Select the Team where you want Live Chat requests routed, then select the Channel within that Team where Chat should post Live Chat notifications.

Step 4: Download and Upload the Manifest

1. Click Download Teams App on the channel page. This downloads a .zip file containing the Teams app package.
2. In your MSP's Teams Admin Center, navigate to Teams apps > Manage apps.
3. Click Upload new app and upload the manifest .zip file. The app appears in your organization's app catalog.
4. Return to the channel page in the Chat admin portal and click Save.

When you save, Chat activates the Service Channel by reading the Team's membership and creating operator records for each member. If activation succeeds, you will see a green confirmation toast in the Chat admin portal and Chat will announce itself in the designated Teams channel with an Adaptive Card. If you see a red toast instead, the most common causes are incorrect permissions or a sideloaded manifest.

Important: always upload the manifest through the Teams Admin Center. Do not sideload the app by installing it directly from the Teams desktop client. Sideloaded apps will prevent the Service Channel from activating, and operator management will not work.

How Operator Management Works

Operators are the agents who can handle Live Chat conversations and execute commands. You manage operators entirely through Teams team membership:

• Adding an agent: add them to the designated Team in Teams. Chat automatically creates an operator record for them.
• Removing an agent: remove them from the Team. Chat automatically removes their operator record.
• Changing the designated Team: if you update the Team or channel in the Service Channel settings, Chat rebuilds the operator list to match the new Team's membership.

There is no separate operator management interface in the Chat admin portal. Teams team membership is the single source of truth.

Verification

1. Open Teams and navigate to the designated channel.
2. Confirm Chat posted an Adaptive Card introducing itself in the channel.
3. Confirm the Chat Settings tab appears in the channel.
4. Open the Chat Settings tab and verify that the Team's members appear as operators.
5. In the channel, type @BotName /help (replacing BotName with your app name). Chat should respond with a list of available commands. You must @-mention the bot when addressing it in a channel; it only responds when spoken to directly.
6. From a Client Channel, start a test conversation and escalate to Live Chat.
7. Confirm the Live Chat request appears in the designated Teams channel and an agent can pick it up.

Troubleshooting

Admin consent fails with "Need admin approval." The person granting consent isn't a Global Administrator. Either have a Global Admin complete the consent, or use the instruction email option to send the consent link to the right person.

Admin consent fails with 401 Unauthorized. Admin consent hasn't been granted yet, or the consent was incomplete. Have the Global Admin visit the approval URL again. If they use PIM, ensure the Global Admin role is activated before consenting.

Manifest upload fails in Teams Admin Center. Check that the icon meets the requirements (192x192 PNG) and that the channel name doesn't exceed 30 characters. Try downloading a fresh manifest and uploading again.

Team and Channel dropdowns are empty. The tenant hasn't been set or permissions haven't been granted yet. Complete Step 2 first; the dropdowns populate only after the tenant is connected and consent is granted.

Red toast when saving the Service Channel. Activation failed. The two most common causes are incorrect permissions (re-run admin consent) and a sideloaded manifest (uninstall the sideloaded app and upload through the Teams Admin Center). Verify both and try saving again.

No operators appear in the Chat Settings tab. The Service Channel wasn't fully activated. Re-open the channel in the Chat admin portal, confirm the Team and channel are selected, and click Save to re-activate. A green toast and a bot announcement in the Teams channel confirm successful activation.

An agent gets "not allowed to perform this operation" or similar errors, or can't pick up Live Chats. The agent is not an operator. Verify they are a member of the designated Team in Teams and appear as an operator in the Chat Settings tab. If they were recently added, re-save the Service Channel in the Chat admin portal to force an operator sync.

The Chat Settings tab doesn't appear in the designated channel. Verify the manifest was uploaded through the Teams Admin Center (not sideloaded) and that the Service Channel was saved after selecting the Team and channel. If the tab still doesn't appear, Teams may be caching stale data; compare the installed app version in Teams to the version in the Teams Admin Center.

Updates not appearing after re-uploading the manifest. Teams aggressively caches app data and there is no way to force a refresh. Compare the version number of the installed app in Teams to the version shown in the Teams Admin Center. Users may need to uninstall and reinstall the app.