Work with Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards
Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards provide a way to implement Adaptive Card based scenarios for both, Teams and Outlook. This document covers the following topics:
- Schema used for Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards
- Refresh model
adaptiveCard/action
invoke activity- Backward compatibility
Quick start guide to use Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards in Teams
Replace all instances of
Action.Submit
withAction.Execute
to update an existing scenario on Teams.Add a
refresh
clause to your Adaptive Card, if you want to use the automatic refresh model or if your scenario requires User Specific Views.Note
Specify the
userIds
property to identify which users get automatic updates.Handle
adaptiveCard/action
invoke requests in your bot.Use the invoke request's context to respond back with cards that are created for a user.
Note
Whenever your bot returns a new card as a result of processing an
Action.Execute
, the response must conform to the response format.
Schema for Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards
Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards are introduced in the Adaptive Cards schema version 1.5. To use Adaptive Card effectively, the version
property of your Adaptive Card must be set to 1.5.
Note
Setting the version
property to 1.5 makes your Adaptive Card incompatible with older clients of the platforms or applications, such as Outlook and Teams, as they do not support the Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards.
If you set the card version to less than 1.5 and use either or both, refresh
property and Action.Execute
, the following happens:
Client | Behavior |
---|---|
Teams | Your card stops working. Card isn't refreshed and Action.Execute doesn't render depending on the version of the Teams client. To ensure maximum compatibility in Teams, define Action.Execute with an Action.Submit in the fallback property. |
For more information on how to support older clients, see backward compatibility.
Action.Execute
When authoring Adaptive Cards, replace Action.Submit
and Action.Http
with Action.Execute
. The schema for Action.Execute
is similar to that of Action.Submit
.
For more information, see Action.Execute schema and properties.
Now, you can use the refresh model to allow Adaptive Cards to update automatically.
Refresh model
To automatically refresh your Adaptive Card, define its refresh
property, which embeds an action of type Action.Execute
and an userIds
array.
For more information, see refresh schema and properties.
User IDs in refresh
The following are the features of UserIds in refresh:
UserIds is an array of user MRIs, which is part of the
refresh
property in Adaptive Cards.If the
userIds
list property is specified asuserIds: []
in the refresh section of the card, the card isn't automatically refreshed. Instead, a Refresh Card option is displayed to the user in the triple dot menu in Teams web client or desktop and in the long press context menu in Teams mobile, that is, Android or iOS to manually refresh the card. Alternatively, you may choose to skipuserIds
in the refresh property altogether in case the scenario involves <=60 members in Teams group chats or channels. The Teams client automatically invokes refresh calls for all the users if the group or channel has <=60 users.UserIds property is added because channels in Teams can include a large number of members. If all members are viewing the channel at the same time, an unconditional automatic refresh results in many concurrent calls to the bot. The
userIds
property must always be included to identify which users must get an automatic refresh with a maximum of 60 (sixty) user MRIs.You can fetch Teams conversation member's user MRIs. For more information on how to add in userIds list in refresh section of Adaptive Card, see fetch roster or user profile.
You can get the user MRI for channel, Group Chat or 1:1 chat using the following example:
Using TurnContext
userMRI= turnContext.Activity.From.Id
Using GetMemberAsync method
var member = await TeamsInfo.GetMemberAsync(turnContext, turnContext.Activity.From.Id, cancellationToken);var userMRI = member.Id;
- Sample Teams user MRI is
29:1bSnHZ7Js2STWrgk6ScEErLk1Lp2zQuD5H2qQ960rtvstKp8tKLl-3r8b6DoW0QxZimuTxk_kupZ1DBMpvIQQUAZL-PNj0EORDvRZXy8kvWk
Note
The userIds
property is ignored in Outlook, and the refresh
property is always automatically activated. There is no scale issue in Outlook because users view the card at different times.
Next step is to use the adaptiveCard/action
invoke activity to understand what request must be made after Action.Execute
is executed.
adaptiveCard/action
invoke activity
When Action.Execute
is executed in the client, a new type of Invoke activity adaptiveCard/action
is made to your bot.
For more information, see request format and properties for a typical adaptiveCard/action
invoke activity.
For more information, see response format and properties for a typical adaptiveCard/action
invoke activity with supported response types.
Next, you can apply backward compatibility to older clients across different platforms and make your Adaptive Card compatible.
Backward compatibility
Universal Actions for Adaptive Cards allow you to set properties that enable backward compatibility with older versions of Outlook and Teams.
Teams
To ensure backward compatibility of your Adaptive Cards with older versions of Teams, you must include the fallback
property and set its value to Action.Submit
. Also, your bot code must process both Action.Execute
and Action.Submit
.
For more information, see backward compatibility on Teams.
Code samples
Sample name | Description | .NET | Node.js | Manifest |
---|---|---|---|---|
Teams catering bot | This sample shows a bot that accepts food order using Adaptive Cards. | View | NA | NA |
Sequential Workflows Adaptive Cards | This sample demonstrates the implementation of Sequential Workflows, User Specific Views, and current Adaptive Cards in bots. | View | View | View |