Limitation: Microsoft Teams - Chatbot Does Not Respond to Copy-Pasted Text

Knowledge Articles
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Applicable for all Kore SAAS Instances

Overview

Some customers may observe that a Kore.ai chatbot integrated with Microsoft Teams does not respond when users copy and paste text from external sources (such as emails, web pages, or documents) into the Teams chat window.

In contrast, when the same text is manually typed or copied from a plain-text editor (for example, Notepad), the bot responds as expected.

This behavior can cause the conversation to appear “stuck,” with no bot response after the pasted message.

Symptoms

  • Bot does not respond after users paste content into Microsoft Teams.
  • No intent is triggered for the pasted message.
  • Conversation remains idle with no error message shown to the end user.
  • The same content works when:
    • Typed manually, or
    • Copied from a plain-text source such as Notepad.

Root Cause

Microsoft Teams sends additional HTML formatting when users paste content from rich-text sources (for example, Outlook emails or web pages).

Example of content sent by Teams when copy-pasting:

<p><span style="font-size:inherit;">Sample text <strong>with formatting</strong></span></p>

This formatted payload is evaluated by the Kore.ai platform security layer (WAF – Web Application Firewall).
Messages containing certain HTML tags or formatting attributes are blocked by WAF policies, resulting in a 403 (Forbidden) response.

As a result:

  • The message is rejected at the WAF (Firewall) level.
  • The input never reaches the Platform, BotKit or NLP engine.
  • The bot cannot process or respond to the message.

Current Status and Limitation

  • This behavior is by design, driven by platform security (InfoSec / WAF policies).
  • Microsoft Teams always includes HTML formatting when pasting rich-text content.
  • Certain HTML payloads are not permitted by WAF rules for security reasons.
  • As a result, copy-pasting rich-text content into Teams is a known limitation for Kore.ai bots.

Recommended Workarounds

Until platform-level changes are available, the following workarounds are recommended:

  1. Paste as Plain Text
  • Copy the content into a plain-text editor (e.g., Notepad).
  • Copy again from Notepad and paste into Microsoft Teams.
  1. Manually Type the Message
  • Typing the content directly into Teams avoids HTML formatting.
  1. User Guidance

  • Inform end users that rich-text copy-paste may not work.

  • Encourage plain-text input for best results.

  • Use paste as plain text or match style options

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Future Enhancements

This will continue to be a limitation for now. In case we are able to find a feasible solution that does not pose any security threat, we will go ahead and implement the solution to better serve the end-users. Any such improvements or changes will be communicated through official release notes and community updates.