Botframework-solutions: Virtual assistant User Greet message is not triggering in webchat iframe

[SSanjeevi]

What project is affected?

Virtual Assistant

What language is this in?

C#

What happens?

Virtual assistant User Greet message is not triggering in webchat iframe.

What are the steps to reproduce this issue?

Deploy the basic virtual assistant bot and use iframe as the channel in website, on loading of the iframe welcome message is not triggerred.

What were you expecting to happen?

Greet Message should show on user is added.

Can you share any logs, error output, etc.?

no message is shown till user types in any message.

Any screenshots or additional context?

[SSanjeevi]

This issue seems to have answer for old version of bot framework: https://github.com/microsoft/botframework-sdk/issues/2098, but for latest version of virtual assistant - i see the implementation already there on MemberAdded method - but still it's not triggering.

[Batta32]

Thanks @SSanjeevi for reporting this issue. We came up with some questions to understand your environment:

1. What do you mean with Webchat iframe channel? Is the BotFramework-WebChat?
2. Are you using the C# Virtual Assistant Sample?
3. Which version of the BF SDK are you using?
4. Have you deployed the Virtual Assistant using deploy.ps1?

We will be reviewing this issue and as soon as we have any update, we will back to you 😊.

[SSanjeevi]

1. In bot channel registration iframe embed in website channel.
2. Yes C# Virtual Assistant.
3. BF. 4.7 i think.. the one which comes with 1.0 of Virtual Assistant
4. yes deployed

[lzc850612]

@Batta32 do you have any update for this issue? Thanks.

[Batta32]

@lzc850612 - we are going to take this issue this week! As soon as we have any update we will post it here 😊.

[VictorGrycuk]

Hi @SSanjeevi, we were able to reproduce this issue, however, we found that the behaviour is not related to the bot themselves but to how the webchat channel works.

We found the issue microsoft/BotFramework-WebChat#2625, which leads to a comment by TJ Durnford. TJ explains that most channels send two events when a conversation is started:

1. Event for the bot
2. Event for the user: one that triggers the welcome card, however, the webchat channel does not send this even until the user sends a message first

TJ describes that one workaround is to send a backchannel event when the direct channel connection is detected, therefore simulating the welcome event. Please check his comment for code snippets and further info.

As discussed with @peterinnesmsft, this is related to the BotFramework-WebChat repository.

[SSanjeevi]

Thanks for the link and suggestion that worked for me.