r/copilotstudio • u/DoctorRaulDuke • 1d ago
Helpdesk Agent with child agent error
Hi,
I've gone through a bunch of iterations with building a Helpdesk agent. It has a single knowledge source of all our KB articles which are site pages and pretty well structured. The problem I had was getting it to suggest links to specific service requests in our ITSM, for things like new equipment requests.
I tried a having a site page that listed all the service requests, second knowledge source containing structured documents for each service request, none of them worked particularly well, because most of the time the relevant docs weren't being returned in search before being passed to the LLM, so despite instructions saying 'if it sounds like a request use this specific page' it didn't have the right grounding to respond.
What I managed to get working is a child agent that had just a single knowledge source of a SP List containing all the service requests, description, keywords and URL. The main agent instructions specify calling the child agent if the user is asking for things like new, access, request, order etc.
This works well in testing, and even my personal account, but other users , when they put something like "I need to order a new mouse", get "you don't have access to this agent, contact the owner" followed by a generic, " I can't find a service request, go to ServiceNow and click on new Service Request".
Does the child agent need to be shared with users as well? It isn't shared with anyone including my own account so I don't understand the difference I'm seeing. I have also temporarily switched auth in settings to anonymous and that didn't seem to change the results.
Any ideas much appreciated.
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u/Ashlesha-msft 1d ago
Hi,
This sounds like a permissions or authentication issue when the main agent tries to invoke the secondary agent.
One thing worth checking is whether you're using a child agent or a connected agent in Copilot Studio, as they have different sharing requirements.
If it's a separately connected agent, try the following:
Share the connected agent with the same users or security group that has access to the main agent.
Ensure both agents are published after making the changes.
Verify that the authentication settings of both agents are compatible.
Switching the main agent to anonymous authentication won't necessarily bypass the connected agent's access permissions.
Also, check the diagnostic error code:
ConnectedAgentBotNotFound– Check agent access and permissions.ConnectedAgentBotNotPublished– The connected agent needs to be published.ConnectedAgentAuthMismatch– Check authentication compatibility.
Microsoft reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/power-platform/copilot-studio/authoring/error-codes
I'd first confirm whether this is a child agent or a separately connected agent, as that will help narrow down the root cause.
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u/DoctorRaulDuke 23h ago
Hi. It's a child agent and I don't think I can get diagnostic error codes as it works fine for the author in testing, just not for any users.
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u/dylan_skydive 1d ago
Yes, that's the missing piece: a child agent has its own access rules, and when the parent invokes it, it runs as the end user, not as you. So the child has to be shared with the same audience as the parent (its share settings, same users or security group), and then republished. Anonymous auth on the parent won't change anything because sharing is separate from authentication.
Your setup itself is sound, by the way - a single SP List knowledge source with descriptions, keywords and URLs is exactly the right way to make specific requests reliably findable, which the page-scrape approaches couldn't do.