Key concepts - Publish your copilot

Important

Power Virtual Agents capabilities and features are now part of Microsoft Copilot Studio following significant investments in generative AI and enhanced integrations across Microsoft Copilot.

Some articles and screenshots may refer to Power Virtual Agents while we update documentation and training content.

With Copilot Studio, you can publish copilots to engage with your customers on multiple platforms or channels. These include live websites, mobile apps, and messaging platforms like Microsoft Teams and Facebook.

After you've published at least once, you can connect your copilot to more channels.

Each time you update your copilot, you can publish it again from within Copilot Studio. Publishing your copilot applies to all the channels where you've inserted or connected your copilot.

Web app

You need to publish your copilot before your customers can engage with it. You can publish your copilot on multiple platforms, or "channels".

After you've published your copilot to at least one channel, you can connect it to more channels. Remember to publish your copilot again after you make any changes to it.

Publishing your copilot updates it across all the channels it's connected to. If you don't, your customers won't be engaging with the latest content.

The copilot comes with the Only for Teams and Power Apps authentication option turned on. The copilot automatically uses Microsoft Entra ID authentication for Teams and Power Apps without requiring any manual setup and only lets you chat with your copilot on Teams.

If you want to allow anyone to chat with your copilot, select No authentication.

Caution

Selecting the No authentication option will allow anyone who has the link to chat and interact with your bot or copilot.

We recommend you apply authentication, especially if you are using your bot or copilot within your organization or for specific users, along with other security and governance controls.

If you want to use other channels and still have authentication for your copilot, select Manual.

Important

If you select No authentication, it won't be possible for your copilot to use Copilot actions with end-user credentials.

Publish the latest content

1. With your copilot open for editing, in the navigation menu, select Publish.

2. Select Publish, and then confirm. Publishing can take a few minutes.

Test your copilot

Test your copilot after it's published. You can make the copilot available to users in Microsoft Teams with the installation link or from various places in the Microsoft Teams app store.

You can share your copilot later by selecting Make the copilot available to others from the Publish page, in Teams.

You can also install the copilot for your own use in Microsoft Teams by selecting Open the copilot in Teams.

If you selected the No authentication or Manual authentication option, select the Demo website link to open a prebuilt website in a new browser tab, where you and your teammates can interact with the copilot.

The demo website is also useful to gather feedback from stakeholders before you roll your copilot out to customers. Learn how to configure the demo website and add the copilot to your live website.

Tip

What's the difference between the test chat and the demo website?
Use the test chat (the Test copilot pane) while you're building your copilot to make sure conversation flows as you expect and to spot errors.

Share the demo website URL with members of your team or other stakeholders to try out the copilot. The demo website isn't intended for production use. You shouldn't share the URL with customers.

Configure channels

After publishing your copilot at least once, you can add channels to make it reachable by your customers.

To configure channels for your copilot:

1. On the top menu bar, select Channels.

2. Select the desired channel from the list of available channels.

   The connection steps are different for each channel. See the article for the desired channels, in the list below, for more information.

   • Microsoft Teams
   • Demo Website
   • Custom Website
   • Mobile App
   • Facebook
   • Azure Bot Service channels, including:
     • Skype
     • Cortana
     • Slack
     • Telegram
     • Twilio
     • Line
     • Kik
     • GroupMe
     • Direct Line Speech
     • Email

Channel experience reference table

Different channels have different end-user experiences. The following table shows a high-level overview of the experiences for each channel. Take the channel experiences into account when optimizing your copilot content for specific channels.

Experience	Website	Microsoft Teams	Facebook	Dynamics Omnichannel for Customer Service
Customer satisfaction survey	Adaptive card	Text-only	Text-only	Text-only
Multiple-choice options	Supported	Supported up to six (as hero card)	Supported up to 13	Partially Supported
Markdown	Supported	Partially Supported	Partially supported	Partially Supported
Welcome message	Supported	Supported	Not supported	Supported for Chat. Not supported for other channels.
Did-You-Mean	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported for Microsoft Teams, Chat, Facebook, and text-only channels (SMS via TeleSign and Twilio, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Twitter). Suggested actions will be presented as a text-only list; users will need to retype an option to respond

Important

Users can't send attachments to Copilot Studio copilots. If they try to upload a file (including media, such as images), the copilot will say:

Looks like you tried to send an attachment. Currently, I can only process text. Please try sending your message again without the attachment.

This applies to all channels, even if the channel or end-user-facing experience supports attachments (for example, if you're using the Direct Line API or Microsoft Teams).

Attachments can be supported if the message is sent to a skill, where the skill bot supports the processing of attachments. For more information, see Use Microsoft Bot Framework skills in Copilot Studio.

Next steps

Article	Description
Configure the demo website and add the copilot to your live website	Publish your copilot on your live website, or use a demo website to share internally.
Add a copilot to Microsoft Teams	Use Teams to distribute your copilot.
Add a copilot to Facebook	Add your copilot to Facebook Messenger.
Add a copilot to mobile and custom apps (web-based or native)	Add your copilot to mobile or custom native apps (developer coding required).
Add a copilot to Azure Bot Service channels	Add your copilot to Azure Bot Service channels (developer coding required).

Teams

See the web app instructions for publishing latest content as they are the same in the Teams app.

When publication is successful, you can make the copilot available to users in Microsoft Teams with the installation link or from various places in the Microsoft Teams app store. You can share your copilot later by selecting Make the copilot available to others from the Publish page.

You can also install the copilot for your own use in Microsoft Teams by selecting Open the copilot in Teams.

Tip

To prevent disrupting users who are having an existing conversation with the copilot, they will not receive the latest published content until a new conversation has started. A new conversation starts after it has been idle for more than 30 minutes.

You may want to try out the latest published content in Microsoft Teams right away. You can do so by typing start over in an existing conversation. This will restart the conversation with the latest content you have published.

Known limitations

• Customer satisfaction survey is a text-only version in Microsoft Teams instead of an adaptive card.
• Microsoft Teams can only render up to six suggested actions for user in one question node.
• A user can't send or upload attachments to the chat. If they try to send an attachment, the copilot will reply with Looks like you tried to send an attachment. Currently, I can only process text. Please try sending your message again without the attachment.
  • This applies to all channels, even if the channel or end-user-facing experience supports attachments (for example, if you're using the Direct Line API or Microsoft Teams).
  • Attachments can be supported if the message is sent to a skill, where the skill bot supports the processing of attachments.
  • See the Use Microsoft Bot Framework skills topic for more details on skills.

Next steps

Article	Description
Add a copilot to Microsoft Teams	Make your copilot available to users in Microsoft Teams.
Create a privacy statement and terms of use	Create and link to a privacy statement and terms of use for copilots you create.