[Channel API] Partner channel auto-reply events

Partner channels now support receiving auto-reply messages.

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IMPORTANT: If you want to support auto-reply messages in your partner channel, you must update your integration.

This change adds a new event type named message_autoreply. To handle this event type, you have to update your partner channel integration.

This is not a breaking change. However, if your channel processes message events without filtering on type, then the new auto-reply event payload may cause issues in your channel.

Front allows users to create auto-reply rules, which automatically respond to an inbound message. These auto-replies are now sent to partner channel webhooks.

To implement auto-reply events, your partner channel must support:

• Processing the new event type: message_autoreply
• The ability to handle a different payload structure. The auto-reply event, message_autoreply, will have a different payload than message_events

An auto-reply event will have the following format:

{
  "type": "message_autoreply",
  "payload": {
    [AUTOREPLY MESSAGE BODY]
  }
}

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What will happen if I don't update my partner channel integration?

If you don't update your partner channel integration to handle the new message_autoreply event, one of the following scenarios may occur, depending on how you structured your integration:

• If your integration ignores messages when the type is not set to message, then auto-reply events ("type": "message_autoreply") will be ignored. This means users of your partner channel will not receive autoreplies, which is the current behavior for partner channels.
• If your integration does not check for the type of a message (which is not a recommended design pattern), the integration may try to process auto-replies ("type": "message_autoreply") in the same way as it does normal messages ("type": "message"). The difference in payload structures between messages and auto-replies could cause an error or unexpected behavior when your partner channel receives autoreplies, depending on how your integration was coded.

For more detail about auto-reply events, see Creating a Partner Channel: Receiving messages from Front.