Using Power Virtual Agents Offline

[Cym]

Is there any way you can use Power Virtual Agents while the device is off-line? I am working on a solution for Antarctica, where connection is obviously pretty patchy. Love any thoughts anyone has.

Thanks legends!

[Pstork1]

Unfortunately, no there is no offline version of Power Virtual Agents.  The AI required to interpret the inputs and match them to the topics is only available in the cloud.

[Cym]

Thanks so much for your quick response.

Is their any ability to do on-prem hosting of the AI to allow continuous functionality in a network blackout? Is there no sync possible? Alternatively, if the bot was developed in Teams, would it be accessible there given that Teams has an offline capability?

[Pstork1]

1. No there is no On-Premises version.  The hardware costs would be quite high.  MS does it using excess capacity that must be built into the cloud to handle peak demands and expansion. On-Premises doesn't normally have that overflow.
2. Responses are processed in real time, so I'm not sure what you mean by "sync".
3. No the Offline capacity in Teams wouldn't help in this case. Teams offline lets you browse existing chat and channel recorded conversations.  You can also use it to create new messages, but they aren't sent till you are back online.  So there is no way to carry on a conversation or start a chat while Offline.

[peterswimm]

Have you considered connecting to one of the Bot Service asynchronous channels?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-virtual-agents/publication-connect-bot-to-azure-bot-service-c...

You would have to design the bot carefully to account for potential timeouts, if you sent it to teams, the message would be waiting for the user once they can find a data connection.

If you go the teams route, you can also start the message proactively from a web event, so if your website detects a login, start the chat in teams:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Virtual-Agents-Community/Send-a-proactive-message-with-Pow....

[Cym]

oooh thanks - very interesting ideas. I will review and investigate. If you (or anyone else) has any cool ideas, i'd also be keen to hear about them.