Streamline AWS Support with AWS Chatbot and Microsoft Teams

• Receive notifications on a new AWS Support case creation
• Receive notifications on an update to an AWS Support case
• Get support case status and latest updates
• Add a note into the Support case

Prerequisites

• Ensure Microsoft Teams is installed and approved by your organization administrator
• Verify that your Microsoft Teams administrator has approved the AWS Chatbot app for Microsoft Teams, and you have required IAM privileges in the AWS console.
• You have a Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, or Enterprise Support plan to be able to use the AWS Support API. Refer AWS Support for more information.

Getting started

• Steps listed under “Step 1: Configure a Microsoft Teams client” are to be followed in your Teams channel. Ensure that the Teams channel is of type Public. Teams doesn’t currently support AWS Chatbot in private channels.
• Steps listed under “Step 2: Configure a Microsoft Teams channel” are to be followed in your AWS console.
  • You must set up “Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic” for notifications in your Teams channel to receive notification of new AWS Support cases. Create a new SNS Topic (of Type:Standard) without subscription and this step will automatically add a Chatbot subscription into the given SNS Topic. Note that since AWS Support service is currently available in US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) regions, so you must setup your SNS topic in one of these regions.
  • For Channel role, ensure at least “AWS Support command permission” and “Read-only command permissions” are added into your Chatbot role if creating a new IAM role.
  • For Channel guardrail policies, ensure at least “SupportUser” and “ReadOnlyAccess” are added.
• Steps listed under “Step 3: Test notifications from AWS services to Microsoft Teams” are to be followed in your AWS console, and verify the test message (refer Fig 2 below) in your Teams channel.
• Do not proceed further until you have received the ‘test message‘ in your Teams channel. This is an important step to ensure the setup is working as expected. Refer to this page to troubleshoot further.

Setup Teams notifications on new AWS Support case creation or updates

Create an Amazon EventBridge rule for AWS Support cases

• Under Event pattern, for AWS service, choose Support, for Event type, choose Support Case Update. It should look like below:

{   
    "source": ["aws.support"], 
    "detail-type": ["Support Case Update"]  
}

• For Target, use the SNS topic that you created as part of the pre-requisites. It has integration with AWS Chatbot endpoint.

Setup EventBridge transformation

1. Expand Additional settings, and Configure target input, select Input transformer
2. Click on Configure Input transformer button to setup the transformation in a new window
3. For the Sample event, use Support Case Update (keep copy for later reference)
4. Under Target input transformer use:

   • {
       "account": "$.account",
       "case-id": "$.detail.display-id",
       "case-event": "$.detail.event-name"
     }

     JSON
5. Under Template use below template:

   • {
         "version": "1.0",
         "source": "custom",
         "id": "c-wvermaf",
         "content": {
           "textType": "client-markdown",
           "title": ":warning: AWS support case <case-id> updated",
           "description": "AWS Support case <case-id> is in **<case-event>** state, in **<account>** account",
           "nextSteps": [
             "Check out case details here:  <https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/home#/case/?displayId=<case-id>|<case-id>> and take the appropriate action."
           ]
         },
         "metadata": {
           "caseId": "<case-id>"
         }
     }
     

     JSON
6. Click on Generate output to see your final transformed event message. If all looks good, click Confirm to close the window. Click Next to setup Tags and click Create rule to create the rule. You can change the Input transformation later as needed.

Test complete workflow

Responding to AWS Support cases within Teams channel

Creating a custom action

1. Choose the vertical ellipsis (3 dots) button on the bottom of the above. Support Case notification in your Teams channel (Ref: Fig-4). It should open a workflow in new window.
2. In Manage actions, choose Create.
3. Enter a custom action name, say GetSupportCaseDetails.
4. Enter a name for your custom action button, say GetCaseDetails. This name is shown on a button on your notification.
5. For Custom action type, choose CLI action.
6. Enter below command
   • support describe-cases –display-id $caseId –max-results 100 –query Cases[0].[Status, Subject, RecentCommunications.Communications[0].Body] –region us-east-1 Note: Chatbot exposes predefined variables from your custom notifications to be used as variables for these custom actions. If you noticed in the previous section (Step-5 of Setup EventBridge transformation), we added “metadata“: “caseId” in the event transformation template. Let’s make use of it, so that same button/action can be used for all AWS Support case notifications and the Case ID is automatically substituted via this variable.
7. Add our new variable by choosing + Add more variables.
   • Variable name: caseId
   • Name expression: event.metadata.caseId
8.  Choose Next.
9. Verify Display criteria i.e. the conditions that must be met to display this custom action button on a specific notification. In this case they are:
   • NotificationType equals Custom.
   • caseId has any value
10. Choose Save. Wait until you get the message “Successfully created GetSupportCaseDetails”.
11. You should get a message like below:

Test Scenarios

• Let’s test the end-to-end flow by updating an AWS Support case. Following message should soon appear in your Teams channel. Notice the new GetCaseDetails custom action button now appearing with the latest chat message. The Chatbot is intelligent enough to recognize that the custom action button belongs to these types of messages, and it automatically applies the button.

• Test the button action to fetch the case update in your Teams channel. Notice it should autofill the required variable i.e. CaseId in this case. Choose Run to fetch the case Status, Title and latest note.

• You will receive a response with the latest case details, as per the defined CLI action. Example response below:

What next?

Resources

• To learn about available AWS Support CLI commands, or variables in the request and response API calls, refer to the Running AWS CLI commands from chat channels and AWS Support API documentation.
• Refer Monitoring AWS services using AWS Chatbot to use AWS Chatbot to monitor and receive notifications about other AWS services

Conclusion

About the authors:

Enjoyed this article? Sign up for our newsletter to receive regular insights and stay connected.