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Copilot Studio Issue with respect to Lists.

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Posted on by P1999

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So I am doing is storing a custom table in a list variable.

Scenario:
What I am doing is this , Loop through this 'Input List' variable and find those items that have value empty. Store these items in the Missing List. Use Items of MissingList to generate dynamic questions by sending them to a Generative answer node. Asking those questions and then storing those answer in someway back in the Input list variable's Respective Keys.
What I did :
I got all values in the Input List from the JSON using
With(
{obj:Topic.ResponseJSON},
Table(
{Key:"A", Value:obj.X},
{Key:"B", Value:obj.Y},
{Key:"C", Value:obj.Z}
)
)
I filtered only missing value inside the 'Missing List' using below fx formula -
With(
{obj:Topic.ResponseJSON},
Filter(
Table(
{Key:"A", Value:obj.X},
{Key:"B", Value:obj.Y},
{Key:"C", Value:obj.Z}
),IsBlank(Value))
)
Now I have two list variables 'Input List' and 'Missing List'
Now what I did next is shown in the image.
Problem is that the Question Node is never invoked. Even though I have altered the property to 'Ask Everytime'.

Categories:

Topic creation & management

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P1999 143 on at

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@Valantis , help me solve this.

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Valantis 3,406 on at

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Hi @P1999,

The core problem here is a known Copilot Studio limitation Question nodes inside a Loop through a list node don't work reliably for multi-turn conversations.

The loop is designed for data processing, not for pausing execution to wait for user input on each iteration. This is why the Question node is never invoked regardless of the Ask Every Time setting.

Microsoft's own docs confirm this and recommend a different pattern: use a parent topic that manages the loop logic and a child topic that handles the conversation turn (asking the question and collecting the answer), then redirect between them.

try this for your scenario:

1. Keep your current logic to build MissingList and InputList as global variables

2. Instead of looping and asking questions inside the same topic, create a child topic called something like AskMissingField
- Input: the current field key/prompt
- Output: the user's answer
- Inside this topic: show the generated question (from BotPrompt), ask the Question node, return the answer

3. In your main topic, instead of a Loop node with a Question inside:
- Use a counter variable (e.g. Global.CurrentIndex starting at 0)
- Redirect to AskMissingField passing MissingList[CurrentIndex]
- When AskMissingField returns, update InputList with the answer
- Increment the counter
- Use a Condition to check if CurrentIndex < CountRows(MissingList), if yes redirect back to AskMissingField, if no proceed

This recursive redirect pattern reliably resets conversation state between each question and avoids the loop limitation.

Also one thing I noticed from your screenshots the Create Generative Answers node has Activity.Text as input, which means it uses the user's current message. At the point where BotPrompt is being set inside the loop there is no new user message, so that node may be generating answers from stale input. The generative answers node should receive BotPrompt as input, not Activity.Text.

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/authoring-topic-management

Best regards,

Valantis

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P1999 143 on at

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@Valantis I tried using this method. Even after I used a child flow. Still it did not work.

I tried it this way but did not work. It skipped 'Create Generative Answers' node always.

Set Variable called Counter's value to 0

Use List Loop

In the list , called the child topic with Key as input

In the child topic

Created a BotPrompt variable with the Topic.Missing.Key

Used the Botprompt as an input in the 'Create Generative Answers' node

Used the response in the Question node directly

.

.

Same process

In the end , used a Set Variable action to set the variable to Variable + 1

For the output variable , it was not needed , I added UserAnswer it into the InputList directly in the child flow.

Finally what I did was remove the 'Create Generative Answers' node completely and created a list of questions and used the shuffle function for making it dynamic.

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Valantis 3,406 on at

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Hi @P1999,

Thanks for the update. Your shuffled question list workaround is actually the right call here and here is why the Generative Answers node kept skipping regardless of what we tried.

The Create Generative Answers node internally depends on Activity.Text as a live user utterance to generate a relevant answer. When a topic is reached via a redirect there is no new user message coming in, so Activity.Text is stale or empty at that point. The node sees no valid input and skips. Passing BotPrompt as a variable does not replace this because the node still needs a live utterance as its grounding context. This is a platform-level limitation of that specific node and would have failed even with the correct counter pattern.

If you ever want to go back to truly dynamic AI-generated questions in the future without the hardcoded list, the right tool for this is a Prompt action (AI Builder custom prompt) instead of the Generative Answers node. A Prompt action accepts a variable directly as input, does not depend on Activity.Text, and can generate a question based on the field key. It works correctly inside the counter redirect pattern.

But for your current use case the shuffled list is clean, reliable and uses no AI credits. Good solution.

Best regards,

Valantis

✅ If this helped solve your issue, please Accept as Solution so others can find it quickly.

❤️ If it didn’t fully solve it but was still useful, please click “Yes” on “Was this reply helpful?” or leave a Like :).

🏷️ For follow-ups @Valantis.

📝 https://valantisond365.com/

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