Adaptive Cards

Adaptive Cards show dynamic information within your MS Teams channels to inform your individual Nimbus Users (Agents), allowing for various task-related interactions. As the name implies their “adaptive” contents can be dynamically updated as the task status - or other Customer information - changes.

Adaptive Card possibilities

Adaptive Cards provide your team or individual Users with the possibility to directly interact with Nimbus via MS Teams chat messages, for example to …

Custom and Native Adaptive Cards

In Nimbus there are two different types of Adaptive Cards.

Nimbus native Customizable via Nimbus Power Automate Connector

💡Nimbus creates Adaptive Cards when your service receives …

  • … incoming Audio/Video tasks that need to be accepted via call “Pickup” buttons shown in the Adaptive Card.
  • recorded “Voice Messages”, which can be posted to a dedicated MS Teams channel.
  • … incoming Instant Messaging tasks.

💡 Examples involve: 

  • Retrieving Customer information (e.g. from a CRM or list) and showing it to the called Nimbus User or the entire Service Team channel.
  • Allowing to open Tickets or Websites directly from within the Card.
  • Perform actions, e.g. to leave notes in a CRM or create a follow-up email as part of the After Call Work.

 

Chat request via Adaptive Card
Planning After Call Work with an Adaptive Card


 

Click to Zoom

On this page we are going to highlight some - but by far not all - possibilities of Adaptive Cards

 

☝ GDPR Notes: Data shown in Adaptive Cards

GDPR Once enabled for a Service, Adaptive Cards and their functions may be visible to all team members and potential guest users in MS Teams - depending on your internal channel settings (default: Visible to Anyone). This means that Customer Context information (e.g. stored Parameters, Service Called, Addresses, etc.) may be exposed in an Adaptive Card.

🔍 Using Nimbus default Service-related functionality in Adaptive Cards, such as downloading Voice Messages, requires a Nimbus login. Unauthenticated Users will get a warning message instead when trying to use the Adaptive Card functions in your MS Teams channel.

→ To minimize risk of exposing Customer / Service data:

  1. Regularly review your MS Teams channel members (→ see Service Permissions) and MS Teams channel Guest list.
  2. Consider not using the Adaptive Cards feature on general channel scope, instead favoring a direct-to-user task / context distribution approach.
 

Voice Messages in Adaptive Cards

When enabled, Adaptive Cards can automatically post “Voice Messages” (Voicemails) within Nimbus-enabled Teams channels

PRECONDITIONS

Audio / Video This applies for Audio / Video call type Workflows only. 

💡Note that only services with User Assignment Type “MS Teams Based” have a shared “Voice Messages” channel. This channel must be set public (default) as otherwise the Nimbus Bot will not be able to post messages inside.

Learn more…

✅ To use this feature:

  1. Add a “Voice Message” Conversation Handling Activity as part your Workflow.
    💡Optionally you can use System Fields and Parameters and use Custom Parameters to add context information via the Nimbus Power Automate Connector.
  2. Configure a “Voice Message Channel" within your Modality Service Settings. You can also specify a channel for your Adaptive Cards, or go with the default.
 
 
 

Within those cards, Users can perform the following actions

  • Download the voice message and play it back locally (using the default player for .wav files).
    ⮑ Clicking "Download Voice Message" opens Nimbus and attempts to verify your user credentials and permissions
    ⮑ On success a message will be shown, and the recorded message will be downloaded.
  • Mark as Listened → The "Listened to" status will be updated with your name to inform other team members.
  • Mark as Solved → The "Solved by" status of the card will be updated with your name to inform other team members. 
Example: A recorded Voice Message posted in a Teams Channel using an Adaptive Card.

GOOD TO KNOW

  • If a workflow has multiple "Voice Message" activities, each recording will get its own Adaptive Card and treated as individual task to be handled, including individual download / listen / solve controls.
  • The "Solved / Reopened" state on a voice message is just used for informing the rest of your team about the call status. The buttons do not have any systemic effects, consequences or impacts on your team's Reporting KPI.
 

Call “Pickup” via Adaptive Cards

Adaptive Cards can also be used to make your entire team aware of incoming calls. The first team member to click "Pickup" will receive a call from the Nimbus bot, establishing a call conference with the incoming Customer.

PRECONDITIONS

Audio / Video This applies for Audio / Video call type Workflows only.

Learn more…

✅ To use this feature:

Adaptive Card Enable: Adaptive Cards are only available when any Pickup Distribution Type was selected for your Queue Activities in your Workflows.

💡Notes: 

  • Note that only the controls and buttons within an Adaptive Card start an interaction with the calling Customer. Replies to the card will not result in any effect, but you can of course still reply to a card as means to discuss the case with your service team colleagues. Customers will not see these messages or otherwise interact with Adaptive Cards.
  • Note that the “Pickup” controls also appear in other areas of the Nimbus UI, so you do not necessarily need to enable and use Adaptive Cards. Consider it just as an alternative to raise awareness within a Teams Channel if your team is not focusing on Nimbus tasks at all time.
 
 
 
Incoming Call Task with “Pickup” controls for any User to take

The first (authenticated) Nimbus User clicking “Pickup” on the card will get contacted by the Nimbus bot to establish a call session with the customer. Afterwards:
⮑ Pickup controls disappear as the task is not ongoing anymore. 
⮑ The Adaptive Card status will be updated, then remain in the chat as a historic entry.

Adaptive Card with updated task results and other call information

🔎 Good to know: Audio/Video tasks can “Accepted” in many other areas of Nimbus, as explained via Call Handling. The main call interaction however always remains within MS Teams itself.

 

Adaptive Cards in Chats

Adaptive Cards are also used for Instant Messaging interactions, showing the first Customer chat message and the incoming Service channel directly in the card.

PRECONDITIONS

 
Steps Screenshot

Step 1: Session Invite

  • IM sessions are distributed you either via service Workflows or directly via Interact. In the following we assume distribution via Service workflow.
  • A Nimbus bot will send you an Adaptive Card as an opening message with the possibility to “Accept” or “Decline”.
  • Clicking "Accept" on the card will establish a separate chat session between you and the customer.
Chat request via Adaptive Card

Step 2a: Declining / Missing Chats

Note that failing to accept a task (in time) can flag you with RONA status which prevents further tasks from reaching you. You can change the status via the Nimbus UI or the Assistant app.

Timed-out requests end in a RONA status flag

Step 2b: Session Creation

  • You can now chat normally with the Customer using your Teams Client.
  • The chat session will last until you click "Terminate". 
Option to “Terminate” an ongoing Chat and end the Task

Step 4: Session Result / Status Update

  • After a chat has been terminated, session results and status updates are reflected on the Adaptive Card.
  • The Task has now concluded with a Reporting result.
  • You can now take the next incoming Nimbus task.
Status update on the task (can update multiple times)

🔎 Good to know: Instant Messaging tasks can be “Accepted” in many other areas of Nimbus, as explained on Instant Message Handling. However, the main chat interaction with the Customer always remains in MS Teams.

 

Known Issues

Issue Workarounds

Adaptive Cards are not showing in your Teams channel

OR

Adaptive Cards are not functioning properly anymore.

Due to a known MSFT issue the bot may stop working properly, resulting in missing Voice Message or Call Pickup Adaptive Cards.

 

✅ Channel Access “Public”: Please ensure that the channel is set to Public, as Microsoft currently does not support bot operation in Private channels.


✅Workarounds: If your Adaptive Cards still don't show, try the following known workarounds:

Method A: @Mention the Nimbus Bot

✅Any Channel Member:

@Mention the Nimbus bot by typing  @Luware Nimbus within in the Adaptive Card (e.g. Voice Messages) channel.

Mentioning the Nimbus bot can refresh the channel-invite and regrant rights
 
 

Method B: Re-add the Nimbus App as a Team Owner: 

✅ Team Owners only: 

  1. Within MS Teams, right click the Team where the bot is not working anymore, then select "Manage Team"
  2. Click on the Apps Tab.
  3. Remove the Nimbus App, then immediately re-add it as described in Service Provisioning → This should re-instate the Bot permissions to post Adaptive Cards. 

☝ Good to know: As long as you don't flag a Nimbus team for removal (as described in → Uninstalling Nimbus), only the Nimbus Tab is removed temporarily. Your Service team remains operable during this procedure and tasks will still be handled.

 
 
 
 

Adaptive Cards show a "Terminated" task resolution but with a cryptic error message.

This problem occurs, when during an active IM Session the ACS Connection String configured in the Tenant Administration for IM has been changed. 


🔎 Analysis: As the resource referenced in the Adaptive card was created in an old instance, Nimbus retrieves an error. 

  • There is no negative impact besides the error message. The Adaptive Card will not work anymore and just "stick around".
  • There is no fix on development side for this, so we recommend changing the ACS Connection string for IM while there is no ongoing IM session (e.g. outside your Service operating hours or during maintenance periods).
 

Table of Contents