Hi Everyone

In this video, I am talking about three new features that were released between April-May 2020.

• Bot Variables/Global Variables
• Support for additional languages
• Adding your chatbot to a Power Apps solution

Bot Variables– The new variables allows you to select one of the two options; local or bot. if use select local then you can use the variable only in that specific topic while if you select bot then you can use the variable across topics in your bot. Moreover, you can now use variables in external sources like websites.

Support for Additional Language– You can now make your bot in multiple languages, providing you a global reach. Along with English you now 15 more languages in preview and should be available generally soon. There are three more languages which are in experimental state, namely Hindi, Korean and Polish.

Working in a solution– You can now add your chatbots to a solution in Power Apps makers portal. All the components are added within a solution. The solution can then be exported or imported depending on your needs.

Video here:

Hope it helps!

See you in the next one.

Hello Everyone

Hope everyone is keeping safe!

In this blog we are going to talk about emojis in Power Virtual Agents. We will also touch upon GIFs and images but mostly Emojis. First of all, if you were not aware that you can use emojis in PVA, I am telling you can and that too #thecodeway. Watch the video to see it working.

If your question is why am I talking about something which is available Out of the box and is a no brainer; my answer would be:

• I have not seen emojis being used yet in PVAs (Silly side of me)
• Main reason: User Experience (UX) is the reason I am writing this blog.
• Add some emotional intelligence to your PVA
• It saves your canvas in your PVA.

Emojis are used by more than 3 billion people (and growing) which makes it the most spoken language in the world. One picture is worth ten thousand words.

For good UX your bot needs to react to different types of messages not just text.Knowing that PVA is still new in the market and is being continuously updated, there might be some emojis which you can’t use (No, I haven’t tested all 20,000 of them 😀)

Using emojis can be a great way of defining your chatbots personality and it can make the conversation casual increasing the engagement rate.

In terms of using a GIF or Image as your PVAs response, use the following and it will be shown to the user. Yes, I am also waiting for the adaptive cards #thenocodeway.


Let’s watch the video, if this interests you. Following is covered in the video:

• Creating topics with Emojis
• Creating entities with Emojis
• Sending response with Emojis
• Sending response with GIF and Image

Video here:

Hope it helps!

Thanks!