How to @mention a user in Google Chat Chat App

[StephenHind]

Have I missed some documentation or am I right in thinking there is no way to @mention someone in an AppSheet Google Chat App?

We want to be able to send someone a direct message when a task is assigned to them but, from what I can see and have experimented with, the only way to do this would be to make individual Botd for each user pre-filtered for that use to send them a DM, whereas it would be handy to @mention them in a Space instead, therefore only needing one Bot.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[StephenHind · Accepted solution]

I found a solution so I thought I'd answer my own question to benefit others and as a reminder to me.

To @mention someone in a Google Chat via an AppSheet Chat App you need to use the USER_ID as specified in the Google Chat API Documentation: Messages that @mention specific users.

As an example if you have a field called "Google User ID" then the message text you should add to the Bot would follow this format

<users/<<[Google User ID]>>>

I was dubious it would work as I thought the parsing would get confused by the closing >>> but it does work as you can see in this screenshot:

I hope others find this useful.

[Madhav_More]

Hi Stephen,

I tried to use your method but it didn't work.

This is what I am getting:
"
<users/user1@org.com>
"

[StephenHind]

@Madhav_More if you look at my previous post (and refer to the documentation) the format is

<users/<<[Google User ID]>>>

that's [Google User ID] not the email address.  You need to get the ID (it's a number) from the People API, etc.

[Madhav_More]

Thanks Man, It works!!

Just to add it over here on how to get that User ID.
Go to https://developers.google.com/people/api/rest/v1/people/searchDirectoryPeople

On right hand side under "Query" type in email id of person in your org & "Readmask" as "names" . Execute and you now have Google User ID of that email.

[jasonbababos]

Hi Madhav, can you elaborate more of the steps on how you could get the google user ID using email address? I am opening the URL you share but it is the documentation page, I cannot find a field to type in email addresses. Thanks in advance! 

[jasonbababos]

Hi Madhav, can you elaborate more steps on how you could get Google user ID by inserting email addresses. I opened the link you shared above but it's a documentation and I could not find a field where I could fill in an email address. Thanks in advance!

[Madhav_More]

 Click on the "API" mentioned at the Right hand side.
Fill the fields.
And execute at the bottom right side.

[jasonbababos]

Thank you Madhav, sorry to have just replied. Really helpful!

[JeonghoonLee]

Thank you for the useful tip @StephenHind ! 

Were you able to apply the mention to the text inside the card as well? 

Also were you able to mention multiple users in a single message?

[StephenHind]

The card is a detail view from AppSheet, so you cannot do any kind of @mentinoning in there.

Yes you can mention multiple users as I've developed a bot to do that also.

[JeonghoonLee]

Thanks for the reply @StephenHind  🙂 

[Raymond_C]

@StephenHind , I've gotten this to work and am grateful for this posting, thank you!

Could you elaborate on the method for using a bot to mention multiple users?  I'm afraid I'm trying to make it more complicated than it needs to be, thanks.

[StephenHind]

Literally just put in multiple <users/userid> tags, e.g.

<users/10494911XXXX160083053> <users/100966225XXXX76187181> <users/113075152XXXX7225095>

 Again the userid is not the email address, but the number given by Google to that account.

[Raymond_C]

Thank you. Sorry I assumed it was not that simple, much appreciated.

[Lapouge]

Hello, I'm trying your solution but when I send the message this appear :
<users/<<100560793381605094554>>> updated a task
My code is : const message = `<users/<<${userId}>>>` +  ' updated a task';
And my userId is from: response.people[0].names[0].metadata.source.id;
What's wrong please ?

[StephenHind]

@Lapouge how are you including the user tag into the chat message?  We preformat the message in a LongText column called chatNote and then add the chatNote in the bot, e.g. here's the LongText

"<users/"&[Ticket].[Assigned To]&">
*"&[Status].[Name]&" - "&[displayTimestamp]&" by "&
IF(ISNOTBLANK([sender]), [senderName], [Consultant].[_ComputedName])
"*
"&[Note]&
IF(
  ISNOTBLANK([groupUrl]),
  "
<"&[groupUrl]&"|"&[subject]&">", 
  ""
)

And here's what we include in the bot (outlined in red):

[Lapouge]

I'm not using Appsheet, I'm using Apps Script to try to send a message with a mentioned person.
This does not work using either the <users/[client id]> code or the <users/<<[client id]>>> code.
The scipt retrieves the client id with the API that Madhav_More mentioned. And I send the message with the classic API which sends messages in google spaces.
Do you have any idea why this isn't working?

[StephenHind]

@Lapouge no this thread is only referring to AppSheet (this is the AppSheet community) so the form at of

 <users/<<[client id]>> > 

only refers to AppSheet and how it adds it's fields to a template.

If you need help with Apps Script you may want to try the Google Apps Script Community instead.

[gabrielmarins]

Although it has been resolved, I would like to contribute with an example using Apps Script that is linked to a spreadsheet:

/**
 * This script retrieves a user's ID in Google Workspace based on their email
 * using the Admin Directory API and sends a message to Google Chat mentioning the user.
 * Note: The Admin Directory API must be enabled in the Apps Script project.
 */

function sendChatNotification(userEmail) {
  try {
    // URL of the Google Chat webhook (replace with your own)
    var webhookUrl = "YOUR_GOOGLE_CHAT_WEBHOOK_URL";

    // Get the user ID using the email
    var userId = getUserIdByEmail(userEmail);

    // Create the message mentioning the user by ID
    var message = `*Responsible:* <users/${userId}> has been mentioned in the incident.`;

    // Prepare the payload with the message
    var payload = JSON.stringify({ text: message });

    // Define the request options
    var options = {
      method: "post",
      contentType: "application/json",
      payload: payload
    };

    // Send the message to Google Chat
    var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(webhookUrl, options);
    Logger.log("Message sent to Google Chat: " + response.getContentText());

  } catch (e) {
    Logger.log("Error sending notification: " + e.message);
  }
}

// Function to get the user ID based on the email
function getUserIdByEmail(email) {
  try {
    // Use the Admin Directory API to retrieve the user information
    const user = AdminDirectory.Users.get(email);

    if (!user || !user.id) {
      throw new Error("Could not retrieve the user's ID.");
    }

    Logger.log("User ID: " + user.id);
    return user.id;

  } catch (e) {
    Logger.log("Error retrieving user ID: " + e.message);
  }
}