Explore lesson topics in classic chatbots
Note
This legacy article only applies to classic chatbots created in the Microsoft Copilot Studio app for Microsoft Teams.
The Copilot Studio app for Microsoft Teams includes sample topics with every new agent. These samples range from simple to complex scenarios that use conditional branching, variables, and custom entities.
The topics are functional but aren't designed for production use.
Available sample topics
Each lesson topic is designed to teach you how to use the authoring canvas to create basic and advanced bot conversations.
You should start with Lesson 1 - A simple topic and work through each lesson in order.
Lesson 1 - A simple topic
This topic responds to questions about store hours.
Lesson 2 - A simple topic with a condition and variable
This topic shows you how to create a question that asks customers which store they're interested in and keeps the response in a variable. In this example, pva_StoreLocation is the variable that stores the customer's response when you ask for their preferred store location. The condition uses this variable to determine which store's hours to return.
Lesson 3 - A topic with a condition, variables, and a prebuilt entity
This topic asks customers which state they would like their order to be shipped. The chatbot uses the prebuilt State entity to recognize the name of a US state in the customer's response, and stores it in the pva_State variable.
A condition uses the pva_State variable to determine which message to send to the customer. Another condition uses the customer's response to a multiple-choice question, stored in the variable pva_Item, to determine which product to order.
When you use entities in your topic, the bot can identify key information from what the user types and automatically stores that information in your variables.
For example, if you type "I want to buy a red car," the bot doesn't need to ask which color car, because the bot recognizes the Color entity in what you typed. The bot then skips the question where you asked for color.
Lesson 4 - A topic with a condition, variables, and a custom entity
This topic has a conditional branch, a variable, and a custom entity.
You can see the chatbot bypass a follow-up question. For example, try testing with the phrase "I want a business laptop" in the testing pane.
Use sample topics to understand how topics work
Go to the Topics page for your classic chatbot.
Select Lesson 1 - A simple topic.
Select Details, and review the title and description that appear on the Details panel.
Select Trigger phrases, and review the trigger phrases for this topic.
To review the conversation flow for this classic chatbot, select each topic. The flow includes expected user responses, decision points, and entity references. The following sample is from Lesson 2 - A simple topic with a condition and variable.
