Save user and conversation data

The first step in setting up state management is to define the classes that will contain all the information that we want to manage in user and conversation state. For this sample, we've defined the following:

• In UserProfile.cs, we define a UserProfile class for the user information that the bot will collect.
• In ConversationData.cs, we define a ConversationData class to control our conversation state while gathering user information.

The following code example shows creation of the definition for the UserProfile class.

UserProfile.cs

// Defines a state property used to track information about the user.
public class UserProfile
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

The first step is requiring the botbuilder service that includes definitions for UserState and ConversationState.

index.js

// Import required bot services.
// See https://aka.ms/bot-services to learn more about the different parts of a bot.
const { BotFrameworkAdapter, MemoryStorage, ConversationState, UserState } = require('botbuilder');

Next, we register MemoryStorage that is used to create UserState and ConversationState objects. The user and conversation state objects are created at Startup and dependency injected into the bot constructor. Other services for a bot that are registered are: a credential provider, an adapter, and the bot implementation.

Startup.cs

// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddMvc().SetCompatibilityVersion(CompatibilityVersion.Version_2_1);
    
    // Create the credential provider to be used with the Bot Framework Adapter.
    services.AddSingleton<ICredentialProvider, ConfigurationCredentialProvider>();

    // Create the Bot Framework Adapter with error handling enabled. 
    services.AddSingleton<IBotFrameworkHttpAdapter, AdapterWithErrorHandler>();

    // Create the storage we'll be using for User and Conversation state. (Memory is great for testing purposes.) 
    services.AddSingleton<IStorage, MemoryStorage>();

    // Create the User state. 
    services.AddSingleton<UserState>();

    // Create the Conversation state. 
    services.AddSingleton<ConversationState>();
    
    // Create the bot as a transient. In this case the ASP Controller is expecting an IBot.
    services.AddTransient<IBot, StateManagementBot>();
}

StateManagementBot.cs

private BotState _conversationState;
private BotState _userState;

public StateManagementBot(ConversationState conversationState, UserState userState)
{
    _conversationState = conversationState;
    _userState = userState;
}

Next, we register MemoryStorage that is then used to create UserState and ConversationState objects.

index.js

// Define state store for your bot.
// See https://aka.ms/about-bot-state to learn more about bot state.
const memoryStorage = new MemoryStorage();

// Create conversation and user state with in-memory storage provider.
const conversationState = new ConversationState(memoryStorage);
const userState = new UserState(memoryStorage);

Now we create property accessors using the CreateProperty method that provides a handle to the BotState object. Each state property accessor allows you to get or set the value of the associated state property. Before we use our state properties, we use each accessor to load the property from storage and get it from the state cache. To get the properly scoped key associated with the state property, we call the GetAsync method.

StateManagementBot.cs

protected override async Task OnMessageActivityAsync(ITurnContext<IMessageActivity> turnContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    // Get the state properties from the turn context.

    var conversationStateAccessors =  _conversationState.CreateProperty<ConversationData>(nameof(ConversationData));
    var conversationData = await conversationStateAccessors.GetAsync(turnContext, () => new ConversationData());

    var userStateAccessors = _userState.CreateProperty<UserProfile>(nameof(UserProfile));
    var userProfile = await userStateAccessors.GetAsync(turnContext, () => new UserProfile());

Now we create property accessors for UserState and ConversationState. Each state property accessor allows you to get or set the value of the associated state property. We use each accessor to load the associated property from storage and retrieve its' current state from cache.

StateManagementBot.js.

// The accessor names for the conversation data and user profile state property accessors.
const CONVERSATION_DATA_PROPERTY = 'conversationData';
const USER_PROFILE_PROPERTY = 'userProfile';

class StateManagementBot extends ActivityHandler {
    constructor(conversationState, userState) {
        super();
        // Create the state property accessors for the conversation data and user profile.
        this.conversationData = conversationState.createProperty(CONVERSATION_DATA_PROPERTY);
        this.userProfile = userState.createProperty(USER_PROFILE_PROPERTY);

        // The state management objects for the conversation and user state.
        this.conversationState = conversationState;
        this.userState = userState;

StateManagementBot.cs

protected override async Task OnMessageActivityAsync(ITurnContext<IMessageActivity> turnContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    // Get the state properties from the turn context.

    var conversationStateAccessors =  _conversationState.CreateProperty<ConversationData>(nameof(ConversationData));
    var conversationData = await conversationStateAccessors.GetAsync(turnContext, () => new ConversationData());

    var userStateAccessors = _userState.CreateProperty<UserProfile>(nameof(UserProfile));
    var userProfile = await userStateAccessors.GetAsync(turnContext, () => new UserProfile());

    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(userProfile.Name))
    {
        // First time around this is set to false, so we will prompt user for name.
        if (conversationData.PromptedUserForName)
        {
            // Set the name to what the user provided.
            userProfile.Name = turnContext.Activity.Text?.Trim();

            // Acknowledge that we got their name.
            await turnContext.SendActivityAsync($"Thanks {userProfile.Name}. To see conversation data, type anything.");

            // Reset the flag to allow the bot to go though the cycle again.
            conversationData.PromptedUserForName = false;
        }
        else
        {
            // Prompt the user for their name.
            await turnContext.SendActivityAsync($"What is your name?");

            // Set the flag to true, so we don't prompt in the next turn.
            conversationData.PromptedUserForName = true;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        // Add message details to the conversation data.
        // Convert saved Timestamp to local DateTimeOffset, then to string for display.
        var messageTimeOffset = (DateTimeOffset) turnContext.Activity.Timestamp;
        var localMessageTime = messageTimeOffset.ToLocalTime();
        conversationData.Timestamp = localMessageTime.ToString();
        conversationData.ChannelId = turnContext.Activity.ChannelId.ToString();

        // Display state data.
        await turnContext.SendActivityAsync($"{userProfile.Name} sent: {turnContext.Activity.Text}");
        await turnContext.SendActivityAsync($"Message received at: {conversationData.Timestamp}");
        await turnContext.SendActivityAsync($"Message received from: {conversationData.ChannelId}");
    }
}

Before we exit the turn handler, we use the state management objects' SaveChangesAsync() method to write all state changes back to storage.

StateManagementBot.cs

public override async Task OnTurnAsync(ITurnContext turnContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default(CancellationToken))
{
    await base.OnTurnAsync(turnContext, cancellationToken);

    // Save any state changes that might have occured during the turn.
    await _conversationState.SaveChangesAsync(turnContext, false, cancellationToken);
    await _userState.SaveChangesAsync(turnContext, false, cancellationToken);
}

StateManagementBot.js

this.onMessage(async (turnContext, next) => {
    // Get the state properties from the turn context.
    const userProfile = await this.userProfile.get(turnContext, {});
    const conversationData = await this.conversationData.get(
        turnContext, { promptedForUserName: false });

    if (!userProfile.name) {
        // First time around this is undefined, so we will prompt user for name.
        if (conversationData.promptedForUserName) {
            // Set the name to what the user provided.
            userProfile.name = turnContext.activity.text;

            // Acknowledge that we got their name.
            await turnContext.sendActivity(`Thanks ${ userProfile.name }.`);

            // Reset the flag to allow the bot to go though the cycle again.
            conversationData.promptedForUserName = false;
        } else {
            // Prompt the user for their name.
            await turnContext.sendActivity('What is your name?');

            // Set the flag to true, so we don't prompt in the next turn.
            conversationData.promptedForUserName = true;
        }
    } else {
        // Add message details to the conversation data.
        conversationData.timestamp = turnContext.activity.timestamp.toLocaleString();
        conversationData.channelId = turnContext.activity.channelId;

        // Display state data.
        await turnContext.sendActivity(`${ userProfile.name } sent: ${ turnContext.activity.text }`);
        await turnContext.sendActivity(`Message received at: ${ conversationData.timestamp }`);
        await turnContext.sendActivity(`Message received from: ${ conversationData.channelId }`);
    }

Before we exit each dialog turn, we use the state management objects' saveChanges() method to persist all changes by writing state back out to storage.

StateManagementBot.js

this.onDialog(async (turnContext, next) => {
    // Save any state changes. The load happened during the execution of the Dialog.
    await this.conversationState.saveChanges(turnContext, false);
    await this.userState.saveChanges(turnContext, false);

    // By calling next() you ensure that the next BotHandler is run.
    await next();
});