Deeplinking to Canvas App in Teams

[SimonSays]

I have created a canvas app that is embedded in a Teams channel tab. I've been attempting to add deeplinks to my app and have been following April Dunnam's great YouTube video from a couple of years back. One thing I've not been able to find an explanation of is how to dynamically generate the section of the URL prefixed "_djb2_msteams_prefix_"

e.g. 

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/entity/{appid?/_djb2_msteams_prefix_XXXXXXXXXX?context=%7B%22subEntity...

I can obviously grab the value from the tab and hardcode this, but I need a dynamic solution that will allow the app to be embedded in multiple channels. There appears to be a MS Graph endpoint to provide a list of all tabs in a channel, but I'd need to know the Tab name for this to even be viable. Has anybody found a solution to this already?

Thanks!

[cwebb365]

What exactly are you trying to deep link from and too? Little bit of scenario information might help. What kind of app is it (model / canvas) etc. 

[SimonSays]

It's a canvas app as mentioned in the title of my post. The app allows users to submit project status reports and includes a feature for managers to comment on the reports (utilizing the Dataverse Notes table). When a comment is submitted I'm sending a Teams message to the users who are watching that report with a link back to the report. For now I'm storing the  _djb2_msteams_prefix_XXXXXXXXXX value in an environment value that is set for each environment. Ideally I wanted to find a way to generate the value automatically.  Hope this additional context helps.

[cwebb365]

So you have to go back to Teams when clicking it instead of just opening the app in it's own browser tab? 

[SimonSays]

Sorry for not specifying that, yes when the user clicks the link in the Teams message they are taken to the Teams channel hosting the app in a tab and the status report is loaded. This is working, I just feel uneasy with the hardcoded  _djb2_msteams_prefix_XXXXXXXXXX  value and would like to understand the magic behind this string.

[cwebb365]

Yeah it's just legit the tab Id. Not knowing the logic behind where this app is in teams etc. gonna be hard to come up with something. But you might just have to build out a mapping table with the id's you can have the notification generator reference based on some kind of event. Might have to patch in your app to that table an entry that can be matched on the lookup for the notification engine etc. 

[cwebb365]

Like you might add the query string value of the tab id to the end of the URL in the channel, so the app can access it using param(). Then use that value when patching your record you are linking too so the notification generator knows it should go to that tab and use it in the URL dynamically to direct to that tab.  

I don't know if it's even feasable to get to that URL from the app, but I would think it might work. Thinking out loud here :). 

[cwebb365]

Never mind, doesn't work. Can't edit URL first off. So thought Website tab might work, it loads but doesn't pull the param out. 

[cwebb365]

So if there is some "logic" that defines what tab based on a record type or something, you can use that value in a Switch / if/then type logic on the notification engine to match it to a tab ID and use that logic to define the XXXXXXX for the tabid. 

[cwebb365]

Then again, if you have param's working you can use however you are doing that deeplink and use that format on the URL of the tab, but have a paramater in that URL for the app they are using. Then use that in your patches to tie to the record in a column or something that you have the notification use. 

With that you'll then have the app(tab) that they were using at the time of editing the record. Not sure if that's what you are needing or you basically dont' care about that, just users will be coming in from all kinds of random channels and you want it to open in "their" team and there is no reason or logic typing the data to that Team..... 

If that's the case I'm over thinking this LOL.....and sorry in advanced.