Disable Teams banner notification for Adaptive Card sent via proactive bot message

Question

We are using a bot built with botbuilder v4.18.0 to send proactive 1:1 messages containing Adaptive Cards in Microsoft Teams.

Our requirement is to deliver the Adaptive Card silently — meaning:

The card should appear in the bot chat

No banner/toast notification

No sound alert

No activity feed notification

We are sending the message using context.sendActivity() with the following configuration:

{

Checklist verified:

No summary field

No text field

No importance property

No deliveryMode

No @mention

Using sendActivity() (not updateActivity())

Not the first message in conversation

Proactive 1:1 personal chat

Despite this, Teams still shows a banner notification (especially on desktop/mobile clients).

---

Questions

Is channelData.notification.alert = false officially supported for suppressing banner notifications in proactive 1:1 chats?

Is there any limitation where proactive personal messages always trigger notifications regardless of this property?

Is there any additional configuration required at the tenant, manifest, or bot level?

Is silent delivery of a new proactive message in personal chat officially supported?

We are looking for confirmation from Microsoft whether this is:

• Expected platform behavior

A known limitation

Or a configuration issue on our side

We are using a bot built with botbuilder v4.18.0 to send proactive 1:1 messages containing Adaptive Cards in Microsoft Teams.

Our requirement is to deliver the Adaptive Card silently — meaning:

The card should appear in the bot chat

No banner/toast notification

No sound alert

No activity feed notification

We are sending the message using context.sendActivity() with the following configuration:

{

Checklist verified:

No summary field

No text field

No importance property

No deliveryMode

No @mention

Using sendActivity() (not updateActivity())

Not the first message in conversation

Proactive 1:1 personal chat

Despite this, Teams still shows a banner notification (especially on desktop/mobile clients).

---

Questions

Is channelData.notification.alert = false officially supported for suppressing banner notifications in proactive 1:1 chats?

Is there any limitation where proactive personal messages always trigger notifications regardless of this property?

Is there any additional configuration required at the tenant, manifest, or bot level?

Is silent delivery of a new proactive message in personal chat officially supported?

We are looking for confirmation from Microsoft whether this is:

Expected platform behavior

A known limitation

Or a configuration issue on our side

Answer 1

Hello Asif,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A and Thank you for reaching out.

I understand that you’ve covered all the typical configuration checks (no summary, text, importance, deliveryMode, no mentions, not first message, using sendActivity(), etc.)

Current Platform Behavior

1. channelData.notification.alert = false

• This flag is not officially documented or supported for Bot Framework messages in personal (1:1) chats.

It was originally introduced for activity feed scenarios (connectors / Graph API).

It does not reliably suppress banner/toast notifications for bot-sent personal messages.

So while the property may exist, it is not supported as a silent-delivery control for 1:1 proactive bot messages.

2.Proactive 1:1 Messages Always Trigger Notifications

At this time:

Any new message pushed by a bot into a personal (1:1) chat will generate a banner/toast notification (and often sound).

This is by design in Teams.

Personal chats are treated as direct user-targeted communication, and Teams enforces notification visibility at the client level.

This behavior applies even when:

• No text/summary fields are present
• No mentions are used
• No importance flag
• No deliveryMode
• Not a welcome/first message
• Proactive message via sendActivity()

3.No Hidden Tenant / Manifest / Bot-Level Setting

There is No Teams Admin Center toggle, No app manifest configuration, No Bot Framework SDK setting, No tenant-level override

that can suppress notifications for new personal chat messages.

The behavior is platform-enforced.

4.Silent Delivery in Personal Scope

Silent delivery of a new proactive message in 1:1 chat is not supported.

This is a known limitation of the current Teams platform.

The only scenarios where notification suppression is partially effective are:

Updating an existing message (updateActivity) → No new toast

Channel/group chat scenarios → alert / importance flags may have effect

Alternative Graph-based activity feed approaches (different UX model)

But for new proactive 1:1 bot messages, silent insertion is not available today.

Why This Happens

Teams treats personal bot messages similarly to direct human messages. Notifications are enforced to:

Ensure user awareness

Prevent silent background messaging

Maintain compliance and transparency standards

Because of this, the notification trigger happens at the client level and cannot be bypassed via bot payload properties.

What you are experiencing Is expected platform behavior, Is not a configuration issue, Is not a BotBuilder SDK issue , Is not tenant misconfiguration

It is a current Teams platform limitation.

Recommendation

If silent 1:1 delivery is a hard requirement, I recommend submitting a feature request to the Teams product group.

This ensures the request is formally tracked and evaluated based on demand.

Please refer this

• Proactive messaging for bots (Teams) https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoftteams/platform/bots/how-to/conversations/send-proactive-messages

• Bot Framework SDK channel Data overview https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/bot-service/bot-builder-channeldata?view=azure-bot-service-4.0

I Hope this helps. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

Thank you!