Configure a custom messaging channel, or bring your own channel

Article
06/17/2022
7 minutes to read

Omnichannel for Customer Service offers a suite of capabilities that extend the power of Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise to enable organizations to instantly connect and engage with their customers across digital messaging channels. An additional license is required to access Omnichannel for Customer Service. For more information, see the Dynamics 365 Customer Service pricing overview and Dynamics 365 Customer Service pricing plan pages.

Important

Support for the Omnichannel Administration app ended on April 30, 2022. We recommend that you use the Omnichannel admin center or Customer Service admin center app to configure the latest features, such as unified routing and voice channel. More information: Omnichannel Administration app is deprecated.

As an organization, you want the ability to integrate your line-of-business (in-house) messaging channels or other messaging channels with Omnichannel for Customer Service. The custom messaging channel capability lets you bring in your own channels, so you can engage better with customers. Direct Line and Telegram messaging channel integrations are supported. More information: Direct Line

The value proposition of integrating a custom channel is as follows:

Integrate line-of-business (in-house) messaging channels that are specific to your organization.
Easily configure the administrator experience in the Omnichannel admin center app.
Create a single and unified agent experience in the Omnichannel for Customer Service app.

Prerequisite

You must have channels provisioned in your environment. More information: Provision Omnichannel for Customer Service

End-to-end walkthrough

Register your custom messaging channel
Add the custom messaging channel to bot channel registration
Create a work stream
Create a custom messaging account

Register your custom messaging channel

To integrate your messaging channel with Omnichannel for Customer Service

Register your custom channel in Azure Bot Service by selecting a multitenant bot. To learn how to register, see Register a bot with Azure Bot Service.
Save the Microsoft App ID and Client secret values for future use. These two values are required to create a custom channel configuration in the Omnichannel admin center app. More information: Get registration password.

Add the messaging channel to bot channel registration

After registering your messaging channel, add the messaging channel to the bot channel registration. More information: Connect a bot to channels

Create a workstream

After you add the messaging channel to the Bot Channel registration in Azure Bot Service, create a workstream for the custom channel.

Configure a workstream

To configure a workstream for custom messaging channel

Create a workstream in Omnichannel Administration

To create a workstream for custom channel in Omnichannel Administration

Sign in to Dynamics 365, and go to the Omnichannel Administration app.
Select Work Streams under Work Distribution Management.
Select New to create a new workstream.
Specify the values for the fields.
Select the Custom option for the Channel field.
Select Save to save the changes.

You've created a workstream for the custom channel. To learn more, see Create workstreams.

To configure other options in the workstream, see the following:

Create a custom messaging account

In Dynamics 365, go to one of the apps, and perform the following steps.
- Customer Service admin center
- Omnichannel admin center
1. In the site map, in Customer support, select Channels.
2. In Accounts, for Messaging accounts, select Manage.
- In the site map, in General settings, select Channels.
On the Accounts and channels page, select New account.
Enter the following details:
1. On the Channel details page, enter a name and select Custom in Channels.
2. On the Account details page, enter the Microsoft app ID in Microsoft app ID that you saved from the Azure Bot Channel Registration page, and the client secret in Client secret, and then select Validate.
3. On the Custom channel page, select Add, and enter the following information:
  - Name: A name for the channel.
  - Channel: Select a channel in the list.
4. On the Callback information page, copy the value in the Messaging endpoint URL box. You'll update this information in the custom channel account.
5. Select Done. The custom channel instance is created.
In the site map, select the workstream that you've created for the custom channel, and on the page that appears, select Set up Custom and enter the following details:
1. On the Custom channel page, select the account that you created.
2. On the Language page, select the required language.
3. On the Behaviors page, configure the following options:
  - Custom automated messages
  - Post-conversation survey
4. On the User features page, set the toggle for File attachments to On and select the following checkboxes if you want to allow agents and customers to send and receive file attachments. More information: Enable file attachments.
  - Customers can send file attachments
  - Agents can send file attachments
5. Verify the settings on the Summary page, and select Finish. The custom channel instance is configured.
Configure routing rules. More information: Configure work classification.

Create a custom messaging account in Omnichannel Administration

After you create a workstream for a custom channel, you need to create a custom channel with the details of the Microsoft app ID and Client secret that you retrieved while registering your messaging channel in Azure Bot Service.

To create a custom channel, follow these steps:

Sign in to Omnichannel Administrator.
Select Custom under Channels.
Select New in the Active Custom messaging account view.

In the New Custom messaging account page, specify the values for the following fields:

Section	Field	Description	Example value
Account details	Name	Specify a name for the custom channel.	Contoso custom channel
Account details	Microsoft app ID	Copy and paste the Microsoft app ID that you saved earlier from the Azure Bot Channel Registration page. To learn more, see Get registration password.	cae1d83e-8b07-4fca-8072-c2eb3444vxyz
Account details	Client secret	Copy and paste the Client secret that you saved earlier from the Azure Bot Channel Registration page. To learn more, see Get registration password.

Select Validate app ID + secret to validate the Microsoft app ID and Client secret values. After the validation, a toast notification is displayed. Also, the Last validated field shows time and date. This ensures that bots are active and client secret refreshes are consumed.
Select Save to save the changes. After you save, in the Callback information section, the Message endpoint (URL) field is generated with a URL. Copy the URL from the field.
Go to the Azure Portal > Bot Channel Registration page, paste the URL into the Message endpoint field, and save the changes.
In the Channels section, select New Custom messaging channel. The New Custom messaging channel page is displayed.

After you create a Custom messaging account, you need to create a custom messaging channel, which is the actual channel from which Omnichannel for Customer Service agents will receive messages from the customer.

On the New Custom messaging account page, specify the values for the following fields:

Section	Field	Description	Example value
Details	Name	Specify a name for the custom channel	Contoso channel
Details	Custom Messaging Account	The Custom messaging account field is populated. However, you can change the value using the lookup.	Contoso custom channel
Details	Channel ID	Select a channel from the list. The list might contain line-of-business (in-house) messaging or another messaging channel.	Telegram
Work distribution	Work stream	Select a workstream from the lookup.	Contoso custom channel work stream

Note

A Custom messaging account can have multiple unique channel IDs. Don't add two or more same Channel IDs to a Custom messaging account because the Azure Bot Framework supports only one messaging account per App ID. For example, for Contoso custom account, you can't add two or more Telegram Channel IDs.

General tab page for custom channels.

Optionally, on the Surveys tab, configure a post-conversation survey.
Select Save to save the custom messaging channel.
Select the back button on the browser to go to the custom messaging account page. You can see that the custom messaging channel is added in the Channels section.
Select Save to save the configurations.

Test your custom channel

For more information, see the developer guide, Test your custom messaging channel: Test Client HTML.

Modify settings for a specific custom channel

In the Omnichannel Administration app, go to Custom and select the custom channel you want to modify.
On the General settings tab, provide the following information:
- Language: Select the preferred language for your custom channel.
- Work stream: Select an existing workstream or create a new one.
- Enable file attachments for customers: Set to Yes to allow customers to send file attachments to agents. Otherwise, set No.
- Enable file attachments for agents: Set to Yes to allow agents to send file attachments to customers. When the agent sends an attachment, the app sends the blob storage URL to the channel. Otherwise, set No.
  
  To learn more about attachments, see Enable file attachments.
  
  To learn more about uploading media in Direct Line, see Azure Bot Service documentation.
  
  To learn more about uploading media in Telegram, see the Telegram Bot API.
On the Automated messages tab, configure automated messages.
On the Surveys tab, configure a post-conversation survey.