Botframework-webchat: [WebChat] CardAction Only sends "Text" back to the bot

[marcasmar94]

Using WebChat, we are sending CardActions either as SuggestedActions or as HeroCard Buttons.

The issue we are facing is that we can not differentiate between a SuggestedAction pressed or a normal text message. Whenever the SuggestedAction is pressed, we only receive is the "Text" field of that CardAction

• We have tried to send it as postBack or imBack
• We made sure Type, Value, Title, Text, DisplayText are filled
  - Only the Text field comes back to the bot, all others are null
• We tried to fill the ChannelData field but this always returns back only the ClientActivityID
• When using CardAction as postBack inside hero cards, we get "postBack": true inside of ChannelData, and we receive the payload inside the "Text" field

• When dealing with hero cards we can check if ChannelData has "postBack": true , if so then the "Text" would be the payload but what can we do to get the payload from a SuggestedAction ?

• Using Javascript integration of WebChat

https://cdn.botframework.com/botframework-webchat/latest/webchat.js`
window.WebChat.renderWebChat(
                    {
                       directLine: window.WebChat.createDirectLine({
                          token: TokenFetched
                       }),
                        styleOptions: {
                          rootHeight: '100%',
                          rootWidth: '100%'
                            },
                       userID: '1',
                       username: 'Marc'
                    },
                    document.getElementById('webchat')
                 );

Thank you

[corinagum]

@marcasmar94 thanks for filing this issue. Could you please provide your code related to the suggested actions / hero card implementations?

[tdurnford]

@marcasmar94 I would recommend using a messageBack action instead of a postBack. It includes the action's value property where you can indicate how the activity was sent. Take a look at the code snippets below.

Bot Framework SDK v4 (Node)

this.onMessage(async (context, next) => {
  await context.sendActivity({
    text: 'Please select one of the actions below',
    suggestedActions: {
      actions: [
        {
          displayText: 'say Hello World!',
          title: 'Message back as JSON with display text',
          text: 'Some text',
          type: 'messageBack',
          value: {
            sentFromAction: true
          },
        }
      ]
    }
  });

Response

[marcasmar94]

Thank you @tdurnford , using messageBack got the desired result. 👍