Quick reference: Microsoft Power Platform & SAP Integration

Introduction:

In this article, I have highlighted some simple steps to integrate Power Platform’s Power Virtual Agents with SAP Gateway Demo System – ES5 to create a Chatbot for Microsoft Teams which fetches product information from the SAP system based on user inputs.

Thanks to some fantastic YouTube videos from Holger Bruchelt and the help provided.

It was really easy to get started and get my hands dirty with Power Virtual Agents bots

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Figure: High-level architecture

The intent of this blog is to emphasize how easy it is to create, deploy and integrate Power Platform with SAP System.

The Power Platform is an intuitive, extensible platform of low-code tools that empower users to build apps, automate processes, and analyze data, including SAP data. Solutions built on the Power Platform enables organizations to get more out of their SAP data, from deeper analysis and reporting to more efficient, SAP-driven business processes.

Power Virtual Agents lets you create powerful chatbots that can answer questions posed by your customers, other employees, or visitors to your website or service. Power Virtual Agents is available as both a standalone web app, and as a discrete app within Microsoft Teams.

1. Develop Chatbot using Power Virtual Agents

Go to: https://web.powerva.microsoft.com/ and sign in using your credentials:

             Figure: Microsoft Sign in, Source: Microsoft

2. Creating Topics for the Chatbot

The starting point of a chatbot is Topics. In Power Virtual Agents, a topic defines how a bot conversation plays out. You can author topics by customizing available templates, create new topics from scratch, or get suggestions from existing help sites.

Figure: Power Virtual Agents Topics

Source: Microsoft (modified)

Figure: Create Topics in Power Virtual Agents

Source: Microsoft

You may enter other details as follows:

Figure: Trigger phrases in Power Virtual Agents, Source: Microsoft (modified)

A topic has trigger phrases, these are phrases, keywords, or questions that a user is likely to type.

A trigger phrase is a phrase that a customer enters in the chat window to start a conversation with the bot. Once the conversation is started, the conversation follows the path you define.

This specific Topic would be triggered based on user inputs provided to the bot during an interaction.

The AI uses natural language understanding to parse what a customer actually types and find the most appropriate trigger phrase or node. For example:

Figure: Test bot in Power Virtual Agents, Source: Microsoft (modified)

3. Creating conversation path for topic:

You would need to create a conversation path for this bot to interact with the end-user. This can be created by selecting Go to authoring canvas:

Figure: Call to authoring canvas in Power Virtual Agents, Source: Microsoft (modified)

Below is an example of the user interacting with this bot:

Figure: Conversation path in Power Virtual Agents, Source: Microsoft (modified)

The user inputs are matched with Trigger Phrases to find the most relevant trigger phrase.       As per design flow, a message is displayed to the user to look up products.         In this step, a question is asked to the user and the response is captured in a variable.       The next step has a call to action based on the user input captured in the variable. The action here is to Create a Power Automate Flow Figure: Create a flow, Source: Microsoft (modified)   In this flow, the user input variable is passed as a Product ID through Get product functionality, that connects to the SAP system through a custom OData connector. As a result fetches the corresponding Name,  Description, and Price of Product ID. Figure: Flow of input & return values, Source: Microsoft (modified)   The values returned from SAP system can be further displayed to the user through the Message.

This flow of Power Automate is ready now and can be tested through the Test bot option:

        Figure: Test bot demo interaction in Power Virtual Agents

        Source: Microsoft (modified)

4. Publish the Chatbot

The Chatbot is now ready and can be Published, activated and added to applications like Microsoft Teams:

                 Figure: Options to Publish Chatbot

                 Source: Microsoft (modified)

5. Integrate with Microsoft Teams

Once published, this Chatbot can be added to your Microsoft Teams application.

Figure: Microsoft Teams integration with Chatbot

Source: Microsoft Teams(modified)

The chatbot can be shared with your team members or published to Teams Channel for others to interact.

Figure: Microsoft Teams Chatbot for SAP Products

Source: Microsoft Teams(modified)

Figure: SAP Demo System with a list of Products, Source: SAP(modified)

Final thoughts & Call to action

This is a basic example of a Chatbot created using Microsoft Power Platform and integrated with SAP Gateway Demo System – ES5. I have used Get product functionality to get the data from the above SAP system. There are many more functionalities that can be implemented with a similar integration approach. I hope you find it simple to integrate and set up. I would strongly encourage going through the references below for a detailed understanding of the topic.

If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestion, please post them as a comment.

References:

• Github Repository: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerPlatformConnectors/tree/dev/custom-connectors/SAP-ODATA-Demo
• Creating a Power Virtual Agents flow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGsROtsUIBg&list=PLvqyDwoCkBXb3tRy411U3Cut8rBvZ_oNI&index=4
• Building Custom Connectors for SAP OData: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9foSIJB3O8
• Create and edit topics in Power Virtual Agents bot: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-virtual-agents/authoring-create-edit-topics
• Power Virtual Agents Overview: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-virtual-agents/fundamentals-what-is-power-virtual-agents
• Video series for SAP based integration and automation with Power Automate:  https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/hyperautomation-special-video-series-for-sap-based-integration-automation-with-power-automate/

I intend to publish this blog post as a knowledge share and a quick reference. Errors or omissions are not intentional. Products and services mentioned in this article are not endorsements. Opinions are my own and not endorsed by any organization. It is highly recommended to refer to the official Microsoft documentation and SAP notes for the latest and accurate information.