Edit

Key concepts - Authoring Copilot Studio copilots

  • Article

Important

Power Virtual Agents capabilities and features are now part of Microsoft Copilot Studio following significant investments in generative AI and enhanced integrations across Microsoft Copilot.

Some articles and screenshots may refer to Power Virtual Agents while we update documentation and training content.

When you create copilots with Copilot Studio, you author and edit topics. Topics are specific conversation paths in a copilot that allow the user and copilot conversation to feel natural and flow appropriately.

Creating a copilot with Copilot Studio is easy to do with the no-code authoring canvas. There are many ways you can manage how topics interact and how you want the conversation to flow. You determine what a conversation should feel like.

You can test the copilot without having to fully deploy it whenever you make a small change.

Use the lesson topics to guide you through topic authoring—from simple to complex scenarios, including default system topics.

You can also choose a language for your copilot to best fit your needs.

Accessibility

The copilot authoring canvas is built for accessibility in accordance with Microsoft Accessibility Guidelines and supports standard navigational patterns. For complex scenarios, users who author content with keyboard navigation can use routing anchors.

Routing anchors

Press Enter or Space on a route anchor to go into editing mode for that route. Once in the editing mode, you can Tab to other node anchors.

With an anchor selected, you can:

  • Press Delete to delete the route. The target node becomes an orphaned node if this route is the only route leading to that node.
  • Press Escape to come out of Tab mode and resume normal tabbing.
  • Press Enter or Space on another node to reconnect the route to the new node. This node has the same source node, but a new target node.
  • Press Tab to go to the next available location to drop this route.

At any time, pressing these hotkeys on a route anchor reads out the properties of the route:

  • Alt + Shift + A reads out the source node.
  • Alt + Shift + B reads out the target node.

Note

If you're using a screen reader, the Settings navigation menu might not get read as "Collapsed", but it's an expandable control which can be selected and expanded. This is a known issue with our menu control, which will be fixed at a future date.

In this section

Topic Description
Create your first copilot Create your first copilot in less than 30 minutes.
Use lesson topics Use a series of prebuilt topics that guide you through authoring topics—from simple to advanced.
Create and edit topics Create and edit topics using the no-code authoring canvas.
Use a system fallback topic Use a system fallback topic when your copilot can't find an answer.
Manage topics Copy, edit, and manage which topics are available in your copilot.
Test your copilot Test your copilot directly within the Copilot Studio portal without needing to deploy or publish it.
Supported languages Choose a language when you create your copilot. Languages affect the user interface, system, and template topic localization.