External link to existing Microsoft Teams chat

Question

I have developed a Microsoft Teams app, and I'm using 'deep linking' to create named chats (chats with topic names) with selected users, as per the docs:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/concepts/build-and-test/deep-links#deep-linking-to-a-chat

An example of a 'deep link' to create a chat would be:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/[email protected],[email protected],[email protected]&topicName=Prep%20For%20Meeting%20Tomorrow&message=Hi%20folks%2C%20kicking%20off%20a%20chat%20about%20our%20meeting%20tomorrow

This works fine - and if I save the portion of the link minus the 'message' portion, this again works fine, and links the user to the existing chat:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/[email protected],[email protected],[email protected]&topicName=Prep%20For%20Meeting%20Tomorrow

However, if another user is added to the chat from inside Teams itself, the link above will not link to the existing chat any more, rather create a brand new chat instance with the same topicName and originally specified users.

Is there a way of 'deep linking' to a chat by it's topicName or some kind of ID only? Without having to get clever with the Microsoft Graph API?

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?Prep%20For%20Meeting%20Tomorrow just links to the chat 'home screen', where a user can start a new chat through Teams

Answer 1

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you can't achieve this directly. As soon as you add a new person, it's no longer the "same" chat, so to speak (e.g. a chat with "Joe, Bob and Dave" is NOT the same as a chat with "Joe, Bob, Dave and Sue". The two ways I can think of that you can achieve what you're looking for though, are:

1. create a Meeting with that subject - the "meeting" chat seems to hang around forever, it has a title, and you can modify participants, even after the "meeting" is over.
2. Alternative to the above, if there's an ongoing initiative, maybe it's just better as an actual Team or Channel anyway...?

Answer 2

I came here looking a solution to this same requirement.. a link that others can click on to dial into a normal MS Teams (multi-person) chat. I want to include this in my meeting invites in the case where I initially created the chat group manually within MS Teams (not originally via meeting invite). I opened the chat in MS Teams Web (in my browser) to get the unique conversation identifier and then replaced that portion in a sample link that I would typically find in meeting invites. I also removed the context parameter. When I followed the resulting link in my browser it launched my MS Teams desktop application and joined the chat group meeting. An illustrative sample link is below:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/*19:[email protected]/0*

The portion "19:[email protected]/0" is what I replaced. And there is no need for something like "?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22c9b9cb50-3544-4db4-a267-fa84df2f4ceb%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22663db54f-657a-407d-8a0b-45c76d8cdffd%22%7d" at the end either. I'm not sure what will happen if someone uses this link who has not been added to the chat by me though. You'll have to test that if that is a requirement.