Overview: Extend Power Virtual Agents bots with Composer

APPLIES TO: Composer v1.x and v2.x

Extending your Power Virtual Agents bot with Composer makes it easier than ever for developers and business users to build bots together. You can now add complexity to Power Virtual Agents bots using Bot Framework's rich dialog functionality, and access conversational memory and context defined in Power Virtual Agents. Additionally, Composer developers now have access to the no-code graphical interface and NLU models available in Power Virtual Agents

The purpose of this article is to introduce Composer users to Power Virtual Agents and link to relevant documentation about extending Power Virtual Agents with Composer.

Prerequisites

• Familiarity with Power Virtual Agents.
• A Power Virtual Agents Production license or full trial. Composer integration is unavailable to users who only have the Teams Power Virtual Agents license.
• A basic understanding of dialogs, triggers, conversational flow and memory, and language generation.
• Composer installed as a desktop application. You won't be able to extend Power Virtual Agents bots if you build Composer from source.

Learn about Power Virtual Agents

There are similarities between Power Virtual Agents and Composer, like that both provide a no-code authoring canvas for users to build bots. However, there are key differences in the functionality and look of both technologies. The following documentation is recommended for Composer users to better understand Power Virtual Agents. Read these articles to learn how to:

• Create a Power Virtual Agents bot.

• Create and edit topics. Topics are similar to dialogs in Composer. Here's a table of other terminology differences between Composer and Power Virtual Agents; however, these associations aren't an exact match:

  Power Virtual Agents	Composer
  topic	dialog
  node	action
  trigger phrase	Language Understanding
  entity	LU editor

• Test your Power Virtual Agents bot.

• Enhance and improve your Power Virtual Agents bot.

Extend Power Virtual Agents with Composer

Read the following sections in the Extend your bot with Bot Framework Composer article to learn how to:

• Access Composer from Power Virtual Agents. You should always open Composer from within Power Virtual Agents if you plan to create content for Power Virtual Agents bots. This will ensure that Composer has all the necessary plugins needed for integration with Power Virtual Agents.
• Follow guidelines for creating bot content in Power Virtual Agents.
• Show an Adaptive card in Power Virtual Agents.
• Use Power Virtual Agents variables in Composer.
• Display multiple choice options in Power Virtual Agents.
• Use Bing Search as a fallback in Power Virtual Agents.
• Display a form with a Submit button in Power Virtual Agents.
• Capture telemetry about your bot with Application Insights.
• Test Bot Framework content with Power Virtual Agents.

Power Virtual Agent bots extended with Composer can't be tested in the Bot Framework Emulator.

Important

Not all features are supported when you open Composer from Power Virtual Agents. See Composer features not supported with Power Virtual Agents for more information.

Additional Information

See the Power Virtual Agents documentation for more information.