Reuse variables across topics in Teams

Članak
07/26/2022
2 min. za čitanje

Select the version of Power Virtual Agents you're using here:

Variables let you save responses from your customers. For example, you can save a customer's name in a variable called UserName. The bot can then address the customer by name as the conversation continues.

However, you can also make variables into bot variables, so that they apply across the entire bot.

Prerequisites

Learn more about what you can do with Power Virtual Agents.

Set bot variables

After you set a bot variable, it will be available to all topics.

When you select the {x} button in a node when you're editing a topic, you'll see the list of variables you can use, sorted in alphabetical order. Bot variables are at the top because they start with bot..

Screenshot showing selection of the x variable icon to display a list of variables.

Reuse a variable across topics by setting it as a bot variable:

Select any variable in the authoring canvas.
On the Variable properties pane, under Usage, select Bot (any topic can access).
The variable name will be given a prefix string bot., to differentiate it from the topic-level variables. For example, the variable UserName is now shown as bot.UserName.

Note

A bot variable's name must be unique across all topics. In the case of a conflict, you'll need to rename the variable before saving your change.

Manage bot variables

After you've created a bot variable, you can see where it's first defined and what other topics are using it.

Go to the source of a bot variable's definition:

Select any variable in the authoring canvas.
On the Variable properties pane, select Go to source.

This will take you to the node in the topic where the bot variable was created.

Find all topics using a bot variable:

Select any bot variable in the authoring canvas.
On the Variable properties pane, in the Used by section, select any of the topics where the variable is used to go straight to that topic and node.

Delete bot variables

When removing a bot variable used in other topics, the references to that variable in the topics will be marked as Unknown.

You'll receive a warning about deleting the bot variable before you can confirm the operation.

The bot variable delete message indicates that references to that variable will be labeled as unknown.

Nodes that contain references to the deleted bot variable will tell you they contain an unknown variable.

Screenshot of a node with references to an unknown variable, which are marked as red within the message node's text, and indicated with a warning that says Bot message contains unknown variable.

Topics with nodes that contain references to deleted bot variables might stop working. Ensure that you remove or correct all the topics that were using the deleted variable before publishing.

Advanced use of bot variables

For more details on complex and advanced scenarios using bot variables, including authentication, external sources, and initialization flows, see the Power Virtual Agents web app version of this topic.

Use variables