In this article I will show how simple it is to add your newly created bot into your Skype contacts.

Introduction

In the previous article we looked at how to create your first sample Azure bot which uses Azure Functions in the background. This article will continue from where that left off.

Channels

The bot framework has a number of pre-configured “Channels” which allow your bot to be easily added to other chat mediums.

If you aren’t already there, go into your bot and select Channels. Conveniently there is an “Add to Skype” button right there….(can’t imagine what that does)

Adding to Skype

You click on the link to Add to Contacts

you then “Add to contacts” – having to log in during the process (I need to get a better logo for my bot)

about 30 seconds later my bot appeared in my Skype client as a contact (bonus if you recognize the song lyrics)

Once it appeared in my contacts, I could talk to it – and while this is pretty simple stupid, this is VERY cool 🙂

I have to say though, the “response” from the Azure functions seems very slow for what should be a trivial task. I have no idea why or how it is even working right now – I’ll get to that 🙂

Conclusion

Adding your bot to the pre-configured channels is as easy as following the instructions and we now have a bot running in Skype! It’s not quite getting me a beer from the fridge yet, but we’ll work on that 🙂