Capture values submitted by Adaptive Card in waterfall dialog

Question

I have followed the advice of this question, the comment on this issue and also this answer.

Inside my Waterfall Dialog:

• Displaying the adaptive card

Answer 1

My issue turned out to be two-fold

---

1) Inside my OnTurnAsync method in my DialogBot file I had:

var postbackActivity = dc.Context.Activity;
string text = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DialogValueDto>(postbackActivity.Value.ToString())?.UserInput;

postbackActivity.Text = text;
await dc.Context.SendActivityAsync(postbackActivity);

I was setting the Text property of postBackActivity variable instead of directly setting the Text property directly on dc.Context.Activity. Because I was sending the the variable through SendActivityAsync it was covering up this mistake because I was getting the value I wanted passed through to the OnEventAsync method in my MainDialog class.

The correct way was to set this directly on the context, not on a copy of it (DOH!)

dc.Context.Activity.Text = text

---

2) Inside the OnEventAsync method in my MainDialog class I had an empty block which caught the response but did nothing with it (it needed to call await dc.ContinueDialogAsync()). However, this was already handled by an existing block of code in the Virtual Assistant template which my empty block was preventing from being hit.

object value = dc.Context.Activity.Value;

if (condition)
{
    // do nothing
}
else if (value.GetType() == typeof(JObject))
{
    // code from the Virtual Assistant template to check the values passed through
    var submit = JObject.Parse(value.ToString());

    // more template code

    // Template code
    if (forward)
    {
        var result = await dc.ContinueDialogAsync();

        if (result.Status == DialogTurnStatus.Complete)
        {
            await CompleteAsync(dc);
        }
    }
}

Once I removed my empty if block then it fell through to the code it needed (the forward part).

---

Change list:

DynamicWaterfallDialog:

public DynamicWaterfallDialog(
    ...
    )
    : base(nameof(DynamicWaterfallDialog))
{
    ...

    InitialDialogId = nameof(WaterfallDialog);

    var waterfallSteps = new WaterfallStep[]
    {
        UserInputStepAsync,
        LoopStepAsync,
    };

    AddDialog(new TextPrompt(nameof(TextPrompt)));
    AddDialog(new WaterfallDialog(InitialDialogId, waterfallSteps));
}

DialogBot:

public override async Task OnTurnAsync(ITurnContext turnContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    ...

    var dc = await _dialogs.CreateContextAsync(turnContext);

    if (dc.Context.Activity.Type == ActivityTypes.Message)
    {
        // Ensure that message is a postBack (like a submission from Adaptive Cards)
        if (dc.Context.Activity.GetType().GetProperty("ChannelData") != null)
        {
            JObject channelData = JObject.Parse(dc.Context.Activity.ChannelData.ToString());
            Activity postbackActivity = dc.Context.Activity;

            if (channelData.ContainsKey("postBack") && postbackActivity.Value != null)
            {
                DialogValueDto dialogValueDto = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DialogValueDto>(postbackActivity.Value.ToString());

                // Only set the text property for adaptive cards because the value we want, and the value that the user submits comes through the
                // on the Value property for adaptive cards, instead of the text property like everything else
                if (DialogValueDtoExtensions.IsValidDialogValueDto(dialogValueDto) && dialogValueDto.CardType == CardTypeEnum.Adaptive)
                {
                    // Convert the user's Adaptive Card input into the input of a Text Prompt, must be sent as a string
                    dc.Context.Activity.Text = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(dialogValueDto);

                    // We don't need to post the text as per https://stackoverflow.com/a/56010355/5209435 because this is automatically handled inside the
                    // OnEventAsync method of MainDialog.cs
                }
            }
        }
    }

    if (dc.ActiveDialog != null)
    {
        var result = await dc.ContinueDialogAsync();
    }
    else
    {
        await dc.BeginDialogAsync(typeof(T).Name);
    }
}

MainDialog:

protected override async Task OnEventAsync(DialogContext dc, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default(CancellationToken))
{
    object value = dc.Context.Activity.Value;

    if (value.GetType() == typeof(JObject))
    {
        var submit = JObject.Parse(value.ToString());
        if (value != null)
        {
            // Null propagation here is to handle things like dynamic adaptive cards that submit objects
            string action = submit["action"]?.ToString();

            ...
        }

        var forward = true;
        var ev = dc.Context.Activity.AsEventActivity();

        // Null propagation here is to handle things like dynamic adaptive cards that may not convert into an EventActivity
        if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(ev?.Name))
        {
            ...
        }

        if (forward)
        {
            var result = await dc.ContinueDialogAsync();

            if (result.Status == DialogTurnStatus.Complete)
            {
                await CompleteAsync(dc);
            }
        }
    }
}

I guess I was expecting having the Text property set on the context to automatically fire through to my LoopStepAsync (DynamicWaterfallDialog) handler rather than falling into OnEventAsync (MainDialog). I knew I needed to call ContinueDialogAsync somewhere and should have been more suspicious of the final paragraph of my question:

Interestingly enough my OnEventAsync function of my MainDialog (the one which is wired up in Startup.cs via services.AddTransient>();) gets fired when I set the text property of the activity.

So close, yet so far. Hopefully this helps someone else out in the future.

Link that I found helpful were:

• ComplexDialogBot.cs.
• Question about adaptive cards and waterfalls.
• GitHub issue about Adaptive Cards and prompts.