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How to create a chat bot global variable without having to ask a question

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Posted on by Faten Yahiaoui Microsoft Employee

Hi all,

I am having to declare a global variable that I am updating in bot framework composer. For the time being, it looks like this is only possible through asking a question. I don't exactly need the question ,is there a workaround for this?

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peterswimm Microsoft Employee on at

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Take a look at this demo:
https://powervirtualagents.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/reusing-variables-across-topics-and-setting-variable-values-from-external-sources/

Even though you are authoring it as if it is a question, the question will be skipped if the variable exists.

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Faten Yahiaoui Microsoft Employee on at

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@peterswimm thanks for your response. Having looked through the link you have provided,it looks like you're setting the value for the variable in the html code from which the bot is summoned. I am currently testing my power virtual agent using the online emulator in PVA and I am setting the value in Bot Framework Composer framework as follows
I am not sure if your recommendation will fit the current setting that I have.

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Faten Yahiaoui Microsoft Employee on at

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Quick update, I found a solution for my problem.
I basically created a PVA topic meant specifically to create global variables.
I made sure that the question I created was not a multiple choice question because if it was the case my bot would throw an error if the value I am setting in composer is different than the listed options.
For reference, the error it threw when I originally created the above as a multiple choice question is the following :
" we ran into a problem executing your composer dialog. cannot convert variable new_variable_991b6a78ca314cd7a8ecd409f1469824_1f67feefb28646919345212afad7ca80 to a namedentity".

PVA automatically skipped the question when I had my global variable set in composer as follows :
When the above was removed and I tried invoking this in my topic as an input to power automate, then PVA would prompt the user for an answer :
This is working now, and I hope this clarifies it for other people trying to implement the same.
Best
Faten

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