Add a display name suffix to identify agents across environments (preview)

[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

When you deploy the same agent solution to multiple environments (Development, Test, and Production), all agent instances use the same display name in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot. As a result, users might have a harder time identifying which environment an agent belongs to.

To solve this problem, configure a Channel display name suffix that appends an environment variable value to your agent's display name in Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Because environment variables can have different values in each environment, your agent automatically shows the correct environment identifier without changes to the solution itself.

For example, if your agent is named "HR Support Agent" and you configure a suffix environment variable:

Prerequisites

• Your agent must be in a custom solution.
• An environment variable of type String must exist in the same solution as your agent. To learn more, see Add environment variables.
• Your agent is connected to the Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot channel.

Configure the channel display name suffix

1. In Copilot Studio, open the agent that you want to configure.

2. Select Settings, and then select Advanced.

3. Under Solutions, locate the Channel display name suffix field.

4. From the dropdown, select an environment variable to use as the suffix. Only environment variables of type String are listed.

   To remove a previously configured suffix, clear the selection so the field is blank.

5. Select Save.

6. Publish your agent for the changes to take effect in Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

How it works with application lifecycle management and solution deployments

When you use solutions for application lifecycle management, the solution is the source of truth for your agent configuration. The channel display name suffix setting is part of the solution. When you deploy, the display name suffix persists across environments.

Because you always deploy a managed solution, nothing changes in your target test or production environments except for the environment variable values, which you can update per environment. You can use Power Platform pipelines to deploy your solution and update environment variable values as part of the deployment process.

For example:

1. In your Development environment, create a String environment variable (for example, dev_EnvironmentDescription) with a default value of (Development).

2. Configure the agent's Channel display name suffix to use this environment variable.

3. Export the solution and deploy it to your Test environment. Update the environment variable value to (Test).

4. Deploy the solution to your Production environment. Leave the environment variable value blank so that nothing is appended to the agent name.

Supported channels

The channel display name suffix is applied only when you publish your agent to the following channels:

• Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft 365 Copilot

This setting doesn't affect other channels, such as Facebook, SharePoint, or custom websites.

Related content

• Connect and configure an agent for Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Create and manage custom solutions
• Export and import agents in solutions
• Variables in Microsoft Copilot Studio