I'm calling a Power Automate flow from PVA with a bunch of input variables, some of them marked optional.
However, I can't see how this should affect the bot logic in any way, and I wonder if it is a bug, by design or if I missed something.
Here is my observation:
When adding the flow as an action to any dialog, I have to set all parameters of the flow, regardless if they marked optional or not.
+ there is no visual indication at all.
This results in Power VA jumping between topics until all variables have been collected.
Sample
Input parameter marked optional:
The flow used in Power VA
No indication that this is optional, nor can I add the flow without setting an input variable (bug/by design?)
If I leave the variable empty (not collected in any previous dialog), when invoking the flow, Power VA calls the sub dialog where the variable is defined and asks the user to provide it. This is, of course, breaking the modeled dialog flow, and I don't see any way around it.
My expectation would be:
1) We don't need to pass any variable when the flow input field is marked optional
2) or, Power VA passes an empty value instead of calling the sub dialog and trying to collect the variable from the user
Please note that I'm using global variables. I haven't had the chance to see if the behavior is the same for local dialog variables.
I considered to model two flows with different interfaces to work around this issue, but unfortunately, Power VA doesn't let me assign the output to the exact same variable, which makes consequent dialogs a mess with a lot of conditions.
The lack of ability to set variables without user input makes many things very complex. I hope this will come as a feature soon.
Any advice?
Thanks
Hi @BenAffleck ,
Unfortunately, it's not possible yet.
We already submit an idea inside the Ideas portal, to allow users to send optional inputs.
You can vote in it: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Virtual-Agents-Ideas/Allow-PVA-to-send-NULL-values-to-Power-Automate/idi-p/574195
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