Bots can serve as Q&A nodes, virtual assistants, customer service reps, web app or microservice front ends, and much more. Backed by AI and machine learning tools, bots intelligently communicate with customers and team members to provide solutions for nearly every industry.

Teams use Azure Bot Service for their bot needs because of the tight integration it offers with other Azure services and the ease with which enterprise-grade bots can be deployed, among other reasons. Azure Bot Service makes it simple to get up and running locally with a bot, test it, then deploy it to Azure. In this lab, you will create a bot, test it locally, then use the Azure CLI to deploy it to Azure Bot Service.

Lab Objectives

Upon completion of this lab, you will be able to:

• Create Azure bots in a Node.js environment, using Yeoman
• Interact locally with the bot using the Bot Framework Emulator
• Deploy it to Azure Bot Service using the Azure CLI and Azure Resource Manager

Intended Audience

This lab is intended for:

• Developers
• Cloud engineers
• Anyone aiming to implement AI or machine learning within their workflow

Prerequisites

You should be familiar with:

• The principles of Node.js is helpful but not required
• The basics of the Azure Portal is helpful but not required
• Basic skills in Powershell is useful

Updates

September 23rd, 2021 - Updated screenshots and instructions to reflect the latest UI experience.