How to register a bot on your Microsoft Azure account

In this article, we will cover the necessary steps for registering a bot to Microsoft Azure. In Microsoft Azure, you can integrate your bot to Skype, Skype for Business, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Cortana, Kik, GroupMe, Twilio, Telegram & LINE. There are four steps to go through in the registering of a bot in Microsoft Azure:

• How to register a bot in Bot Channels Registration
• How to create a Microsoft App ID
• How to add the bot to a channel
• How to connect to the BotXO platform

How to register a bot in Bot Channels Registration

To register your bot to your Microsoft Azure account, go to the right sidebar menu, press Bot Settings and go to channels. In channels, choose the Microsoft Azure option and click "Copy URL". This link is the connecting link between your Azure account and the BotXO Platform.

Next, you should go to your Azure account and use your developer account. In the search bar, search for "Bot Channels Registration" and click on the option.

This will take you to a page, where you can register your bot.

Under Bot Channels Registration, you will need to provide the following information:

• The bot name: the bot name should be easily recognizable for you and your team
• Subscription: this relates to the type of subscription you have to Microsoft Azure products
• Resource group: You should add one of your resource groups or create a new resource group
• Location: choose the location, which is closest to you
• Pricing tier: Choose the one that represents your company the best
• Messaging endpoint: Paste the URL you copied from Channels in the BotXO Platform
• Application insights: it's optional whether or not you want to activate this and it is also possible to activate at a later point

How to create a Microsoft App ID

At the bottom of the Bot Channels registration page, you should click "Auto create App ID and password" and then a menu will open. In this menu click "Create new".

Here you should click "Create App ID in the App Registration Portal", which will open a new tab.

On this page, you either obtain the Microsoft App ID when you click on an existing App or register a new App(Click on New registrations) and obtain the Microsoft App ID once it's done registering. This is the Microsoft App ID to be used in the above registration. Copy it on your desktop. 

After you have obtained your Microsoft App ID on the App page, click on the Certificates & secrets option located on the left menu under the Manage title. This is from where you would obtain from the password we would use to connect our bot to azure.

Under Client secrets, click on New client secret, insert your description, and your desired expiry period and click Add after which the Client secret key would be created. Copy this key on your desktop.

Insert the obtained Microsoft App ID and Client secret as your password as shown below:

Then you should click the "OK" button. Then the menus will automatically close and you should click the "Create" button. 

It will take some time until the channel is ready and once it is ready, you will be re-directed to the front page. After this, you can access that service by searching for Bot Services, where the new service will be listed. Click on it and the view will be pretty much like the following: 

How to add the bot to a channel

To add the bot to a channel, please click "Channels" and here you will see an overview of the different channels that the bot can get integrated on.

By default, there is the web chat channel already set up and can be tested from the Bot emulator available under the “Test in Web Chat” in the menu at the left side panel. The same bot can be added to several channels. Please see this overview of how to integrate the bots on the available channels.

How to connect to the BotXO Platform

In the last step of the process, we start where we began: in the BotXO Platform. In Channels in Bot Settings, you should insert the Microsoft Application ID and password we generated in the How to create a Microsoft App ID step and press "Connect".

And then your bot is good to go!