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Query Dataverse data

Applies to: Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Note

  • The tools and examples in this documentation illustrate current capabilities. Tool names, descriptions, parameters, response formats, and available functionality can change over time.
  • When you build agents, integrations, or orchestration logic, don't hard-code dependencies on specific tool names, parameter structures, tool metadata, or response schemas. Instead, design your solution to discover and use available tools at runtime.
  • As the platform evolves, Microsoft might add, remove, rename, or modify tools and tool metadata. Designing against capabilities rather than specific tool identifiers helps maintain compatibility across service updates.

Use this capability to ask ad-hoc questions about your Dynamics 365 data when no other specific capability covers your question.

What it does

The assistant translates your natural-language question into a database query and returns the answer from your Dynamics 365 data. This works for ad-hoc lookups, counts, filtered queries, and questions that span multiple related records.

This is a general-purpose fallback—the assistant tries more specific capabilities first (like case lookup, email search, or knowledge base search). It uses this when your question doesn't fit neatly into a specific tool.

Try prompts like

  • What is the origin of case CAS-01010-A0A0A0?
  • How many active cases were created this week?
  • What is the SLA status for this case?
  • List contacts on account Contoso.
  • How many cases have priority high and status active?
  • What custom field values are set on this case?
  • Show me cases linked to this email.
  • What is the severity code for this case?

What you'll see in chat

The assistant returns the answer as text in the chat based on the query results. Depending on the question, you may see a single value, a count, or a list of records.

Helpful tips

  • Be specific in your question. Include entity names and relationship details when relevant (for example, "contacts on account Contoso" rather than just "contacts").
  • For case lookups, priority values are High, Normal, or Low. If you say "critical," the assistant interprets that as severity, not priority.
  • If a question contains an organization-specific term or identifier, keep that term unchanged when adding context. After an empty or unexpected result, the assistant can load the Customer Service vocabulary to map an unfamiliar term before selecting a dedicated tool or retrying this capability.
  • For common queries (listing cases, searching emails, finding knowledge articles), use the dedicated capabilities instead—they return richer results with interactive components.

Tip

This capability works best for questions that other tools can't answer, such as looking up custom fields, counting records across entities, or querying relationships between different record types.

What happens next

After receiving the answer, you can continue with prompts like:

  • Tell me more about that record.
  • Open case CAS-01010-A0A0A0.
  • Show me the timeline for that account.
  • Update the priority to high.

Does this change data?

No, this doesn't change data.

This capability only reads data from Dynamics 365. It cannot create, update, or delete records.

Prerequisites

This tool requires the following:

  • Ask a question capability to be enabled in the Copilot help pane. Without the CustomerServiceQnA skill configured, ad-hoc Dataverse queries fail.

Learn more in Manage Copilot features in Customer Service and Enable features in Copilot pane.

Tool summary

Property Value
User-facing name Query Dataverse Data
Internal tool name answer_service_question
Purpose Answers natural-language questions about Dataverse data by translating the question into FetchXML and executing it through the CustomerServiceQnA skill

Tool behavior

Answers natural-language questions about Dataverse data by translating the question into FetchXML and executing it through the CustomerServiceQnA skill. This is a fallback tool with the lowest routing priority—it handles ad-hoc field lookups, counts, filtered queries, and relationship-traversal queries that dedicated tools cannot cover.

Annotations

Annotation Value Meaning
readOnlyHint Not set Read-only in practice; this tool queries Dataverse data without modification.
destructiveHint Not set Not applicable (read-only tool).
idempotentHint Not set Not applicable (read-only tool).
openWorldHint Not set Uses default (queries Dataverse).

Input concepts

Query

Input Description Required
queryText queryText (required, 1-2000 characters). Natural-language question to answer from Dataverse data. Phrase the question clearly, including entity names and relationship context. Yes

Execution options

Input Description Required
options options (optional). Array of execution modes. ExecuteFetchXML (default) generates and executes the query. Omit for dry-run mode. No

Page context

Input Description Required
currentPageContext currentPageContext (optional). JSON object string with the user's current view context (entity, record ID, filters, view name, selected IDs). Include every piece of context available for more accurate query generation. No

Response and UI behavior

Response type

Text-only

No interactive component is rendered. The tool translates the natural-language question into FetchXML, executes it through the Dataverse Copilot endpoint (POST /api/copilot/v1.0/queryskillstructureddata with skill CustomerServiceQnA), and returns the query results as text. The structuredContent includes up to 10 result rows; the full result set (up to 30 rows) is included in the model narration.

Routing notes

answer_service_question has the lowest routing priority. Always prefer dedicated tools first:

  • get_case, list_cases, search_cases for case queries.
  • get_activity_timeline for activity history.
  • list_emails for email queries.
  • search_knowledge_articles for knowledge base queries.
  • summarize_account, summarize_contact for account/contact details.
  • search_entities for entity lookup.

Use answer_service_question only when:

  • No dedicated tool covers the specific query (ad-hoc field lookups, custom fields, counts).
  • The query involves relationship traversal that dedicated tools cannot expand.
  • The user asks about entity fields or metadata not exposed by other tools.

Vocabulary note: Priority values are High, Normal, Low. "Critical" maps to severitycode, not priority.

Tool Relationship
list_cases Preferred for case listing and filtering
get_case Preferred for single-case detail
search_cases Preferred for full-text case search
get_activity_timeline Preferred for activity history
list_emails Preferred for email queries
search_knowledge_articles Preferred for knowledge base queries
search_entities Preferred for entity lookup

Data mutation classification

Read-only.

Queries Dataverse data without modification. The tool sends a POST to the Dataverse Copilot queryskillstructureddata endpoint, which internally generates and executes FetchXML. The only privilege required is prvReadIncident as a discovery floor; the CustomerServiceQnA skill enforces fine-grained entity-level read privileges at call time. The tool doesn't support creating or updating records.

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