Answered

No auto greeting in Test Chat after enabling Conversation Start

(1) Share

Report

Posted on by BestYuan

Hi everyone,

I'm working with Microsoft Copilot Studio and noticed a change in behavior related to the Conversation Start (system topic). I’d like to confirm whether this is expected or a configuration issue.

Scenario:

In a newly created agent (no customization):

When opening the Test Chat window
The agent automatically sends a greeting message (without any user input)

However, after making changes such as:

Editing the Conversation Start system topic
Or adding/modifying custom topics

The behavior changes:

❌ No automatic greeting message when opening Test Chat
❌ The chat remains idle until the user sends the first message

Current Configuration:

Conversation Start: ✅ Enabled
System topics: Not disabled
Testing environment: Test Chat (inside Copilot Studio)

Observed Behavior:

The Conversation Start topic is only triggered after the first user message (e.g., "hi")
No message is sent automatically on chat open

Expected Behavior:

I was expecting one of the following:

The greeting message to be automatically triggered on opening Test Chat (similar to the default agent behavior), or
Conversation Start to execute without requiring an initial user message

Questions:

Is this behavior by design in Copilot Studio?
Is there a default/implicit greeting mechanism that gets disabled once customization begins?
Is there a recommended way to achieve an auto-triggered greeting on chat open, especially within Test Chat?

Additional Notes:

It appears that:

The default (non-customized) agent includes an implicit auto-greeting
Once system topics are modified, the interaction becomes user-driven, and Conversation Start only runs after the first user input

I’d appreciate any clarification or best practices.

Thanks in advance!

Categories:

Building Copilot Studio chatbots in Microsoft Teams

I have the same question (0)

All responses (5)

Answers (4)

Verified answer

BestYuan 61 on at

Like (1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

In the custom topics, there is a topic whose Trigger is An activity occurrence, which causes the iframe to remain in a waiting state and interrupts the Conversation Start system topic.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

Robu1 1,621 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

Like (1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
Hi ZY-19010544-0 ,

Thank you for choosing Microsoft Community.

There is no way to force auto‑greeting inside Test Chat.

This is a platform limitation.

Auto‑greeting is possible in real channels, such as:

Teams (via proactive messages)

Custom website embed (via Web Chat event on load)

Bot Framework Web Chat (postActivity on startup)

Conversation Start will still run normally in production. It simply won’t auto‑trigger in Test Chat. in summary Copilot Studio’s Test Chat does not support auto‑greeting, so Conversation Start will only trigger after the first user message by design.

Relevant Microsoft Learn Documentation

1. Test your bot – Copilot Studio

This page confirms that Test Chat is a manual testing environment and does not simulate proactive triggers.https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/search/?terms=test%20your%20bot

2. System Topics – Conversation Start

Explains that Conversation Start is triggered after the first user message, not automatically on chat open. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/test-bot

3. Proactive Messaging

Explains how to send auto‑greetings in real channels (Teams, Web Chat).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/search/?terms=send%20auto%E2%80%91greetings%20in%20real%20channels

I hope this helps resolve the issue! If you need more specific guidance, feel free to ask.

🏷️ Please tag me @Robu1 if you still have any queries related to the solution or issue persists.

✅ Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue and help others who will face the similar issue in future. ❤️ Please consider giving it a Like, If the approach was useful in other ways.

Happy to help

Robu 1👩‍💻

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

Sayali Microsoft Employee on at

Like (1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hello,
This behavior is by design in Copilot Studio. Newly created agents appear to auto-greet due to an implicit platform bootstrap tied to the default, system-managed Conversation Start topic. However, once the agent is customized (e.g., editing Conversation Start or adding custom topics), this implicit greeting is removed and the agent switches to a strict turn-based model where Conversation Start only triggers after the first user message. As a result, Test Chat, Teams, and other channels require user input before greeting, and there is currently no supported way to automatically trigger Conversation Start on chat open.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your feedback is important to us. Please rate us:

🤩 Excellent 🙂 Good 😐 Average 🙁 Needs Improvement 😠 Poor

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

Valantis 2,535 on at

Like (1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
Hi @ZY-19010544-0,

Yes, this is by design once you customize system topics or add custom topics.
The auto-greeting you saw originally is part of a special experience for a brand-new, unmodified agent in the Test your agent panel. When you start customizing topics, Copilot Studio shifts to a user-initiated model Conversation Start no longer fires until the first user message. This behavior aligns with the new unified authoring model and how Conversation Start is intended to work.

There is no persistent implicit greeting after customization.
Once you edit Conversation Start or create custom topics, you control the behavior. The implicit greeting is disabled.

If you want the agent to greet users automatically after customization, you’ll need to trigger it programmatically:

For a web deployment, use the provided sample JavaScript and HTML for a custom canvas to call the Greeting topic on page load.

For Teams or custom applications, send an event activity named startConversation when the chat initializes.

Here’s the documentation with full steps:
Automatically start an agent conversation.

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/

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
BestYuan 61 on at

Like (2)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

@Robu1 @Sayali @ValantisThank you very much for your answers. I have found a solution. Thank you all.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No