Adding Microsoft Teams as a communication channel

By integrating Microsoft Teams as a communication channel, BMC HelixGPT administrators can streamline user interactions, automate support tasks, and improve service delivery. By leveraging Microsoft Teams’ familiar interface, organizations can enhance collaboration, reduce response times, and provide real-time support without switching platforms.

With this integration, you can perform the following actions:

Ask a lookup based query in Microsoft Teams. BMC HelixGPT responds with a search based adaptive card that helps you search and select the correct options without scrolling through long lists or hitting errors.
Share an image in a Microsoft Teams conversation with a text query, and BMC HelixGPT will analyze the image to provide relevant answers to your query.
Leave feedback on responses directly within Microsoft Teams and in other BMC chat clients such as BMC Helix Virtual Agent, BMC Helix Digital Workplace, and BMC Helix Business Workflows. However, the feedback option might not appear for all questions. Microsoft Teams provides a smiley-based feedback survey after chat sessions. This survey enables users to rate their experience and requires comments when lower ratings are given. You can also choose to disable the feedback response by using the enableFeedbackInTeams parameter while configuring a skill. For more information, see Updating the configuration parameters of a skill.

Scenario: Enhancing employee self-service with Microsoft Teams

Jonnie, Apex Global's HelixGPT Agent Studio administrator and Office 365 (Teams) administrator, adds a custom channel integrated with Microsoft Teams to enhance employee self-service.

Employees can request new software, check asset availability, and track service requests directly within Teams.

The channel delivers instant responses, automates approvals, and escalates complex requests to the IT team, boosting efficiency and reducing the service desk workload.

Limitations

Microsoft Teams integration has certain limitations:

Live chat integration is supported only through the skills for BMC Helix Digital Workplace..
When you add the Microsoft Teams channel by using the Live Chat prompt, do not use the BMC Helix Virtual Agent skill.
Image analysis in Microsoft Teams is not supported for BMC Helix Digital Workplace prompt-based or agent-based skills configured with the Google Vertex AI openai/gpt-oss-120b-maas model. It is supported only when the skill is configured with Azure OpenAI 4.1.
When you upload two images in Microsoft Teams using a prompt-based skill, and the second image is not related to the first, a response is provided only for the first image. BMC HelixGPT does not process the second image that is not related to the first one.

Before you begin

Make sure that the tasks documented in the Creating a Microsoft Teams bot and application topic are complete.

To add Microsoft Teams as a communication channel

In HelixGPT Agent Studio, select an application from the Applications drop-down list.
Select an appropriate skill for the application you select.
Click the Channels tab.
Click Add Channel.
The Add Channel dialog box is displayed.
Select Microsoft Teams from the Channel drop-down list.
Click Add.
The Add Channel dialog box is displayed.

Set the following values in the Add Channel dialog box:

Field name	Description
Name	Custom channel name.
Description	Custom channel description.
Name of the custom channel.	A unique identifier for the bot registered in Microsoft Azure. This ID enables the integration between BMC HelixGPT and Microsoft Teams, allowing seamless communication and automated interactions within the Teams environment.
Microsoft Bot ID	The Bot ID of the Bot you have configured in the Microsoft Developer Portal.
Microsoft App Password	Value of the Client secret field of the Bot you have configured in the Microsoft Developer Portal.
Webhook URL	The endpoint address you have configured in the Microsoft Developer Portal.

Click Save.

Where to go from here

Launching Ops Swarmer for collaboration