Greetings!
That is a very relevant question as many organizations have their knowledge locked behind private, login-only websites.
You are correct that you cannot directly point a Microsoft Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agents) agent to a private website for training using the standard "generative answers" feature. The underlying service that fetches and indexes the web content cannot log in to access the information.
However, you can absolutely achieve this by using Power Automate as an intermediary to handle the authentication and data retrieval.
The Power Automate Solution
The standard and most effective method is to create a Power Automate flow that the Copilot agent calls when it needs information from the private source. The flow will be responsible for authenticating, fetching the data, and returning it to the agent to present to the user.
Here's a high-level overview of the process:
- Create a Topic in Copilot Studio: Within a topic, instead of using a standard message, you'll add an action to call a Power Automate flow. You can pass user inputs (like their search query) to this flow.
- Build the Power Automate Flow:
- The flow will be triggered by Copilot Studio.
- Use the HTTP action or a custom connector within the flow to connect to your private website or its underlying data source (e.g., an internal API, a database, or a SharePoint list). This is where you will handle the authentication, passing credentials, API keys, or using OAuth tokens.
- Once authenticated, the flow can query the data source based on the user's request.
- The flow then sends the retrieved information back to Copilot Studio as an output variable.
- Display the Information: Back in your Copilot Studio topic, the agent will receive the data from the flow and can then display it to the user.
Special Case: SharePoint and Internal Dataverse
If your private data is stored in SharePoint Online or Dataverse, the process is much simpler. Copilot Studio has built-in connectors for these services that can handle user authentication automatically. When you enable authentication for your bot, it can leverage the logged-in user's identity to search SharePoint sites they have access to.
While it requires a few more steps than using a public website, this Power Automate approach is powerful and secure, allowing your agent to access a wide range of internal, authenticated data sources.
I hope this helps you build a more knowledgeable agent!
Best regards,
Jerald Felix
