Microsoft Bot Framework July 2016 Update

The industry is abuzz with news about bots and bot events. Of recent note, the Botness conference was a resounding success as was the Skype Hackathon held June 21-22 in the Valley. The energy and participation at these events has been inspiring and invigorating!

Today, we are releasing an important update to the Bot Framework developed largely in response to feedback received from the active Bot Framework community. The update is focused on quality, schema features, and performance. Enhancements include:

  • Well-defined support for cards and carousels for both channels that support them natively (Skype, Facebook) and text-rendered for those that don’t;
  • Automatic configuration of Skype – no copy-and-paste needed!
  • Simplified addressing of users and groups;
  • Additional dialog types and capabilities in the Bot Builder SDK;
  • Added Cognitive Services LUIS Intent Dialog type to the SDK;
  • Support for Skype calling features added to the SDK;
  • Enhancements to the Bot Framework Emulator;
  • Support for Slack’s recent addition of buttons; and
  • Support for many of Facebook’s newest Bot features.
These improvements come with some changes to the API/SDK that will impact your bot.

To take advantage of the new features, you’ll need to update your bot. For most bots, the changes will be straightforward. Existing bots will continue to run for some time, however, we encourage you to update your Bot to the new release.

For a step-by-step guide to upgrading your bot please visit the documentation at https://docs.botframework.com.

We’ve also updated our terms of use. By continuing to use the Microsoft Bot Framework you agree to the online services agreement and code of conduct. We’re excited to provide this update, and acknowledge the inconvenience of revising the protocol. Thank you for your continued engagement with Bot Framework and in helping us to make a better way for you to build, deploy and publish high-quality bots for your users wherever they converse.

For more Bot related news from Microsoft, check out the Skype blog.
Keep on botting!

The Microsoft Bot Framework Team


Source: Microsoft Bot Framework July Update - Cards, and New Skype, Slack, and Facebook Bot Features | Blog | Bot Framework

See also: Skype Bot developer update: cards, groups and more - Skype Blogs
 
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