Accessing Web Messaging Participant Attributes in Architect Inbound Message Flows via CX as Code

Architect & Flows
1

Looking for advice on retrieving dynamic participant attributes established during a Web Messaging session within an Architect Inbound Message flow definition.

Context:
We are deploying a standardized integration pattern using the Genesys Cloud Terraform provider. The objective is to pass customer-specific metadata from the Web Messaging widget directly into the Architect flow for routing logic. We utilize the genesys_cloud_routing_flow resource to define the inbound message handling.

The Web Messaging configuration is managed via genesys_cloud_messaging_app. We set custom attributes on the participant level using the JavaScript SDK before the conversation is handed off to the platform. For example:

GenesysCloudMessaging.setParticipantAttribute('tier', 'gold');

In the Architect flow, we attempt to reference this data using standard attribute expressions. The current Terraform configuration for the decision node looks like this:

resource "genesys_cloud_routing_flow" "this" {
 name = "Inbound Web Messaging Flow"
 type = "inbound-message"
 
 # ... other config ...
 
 actions {
 type = "decision"
 label = "Check Tier"
 
 conditions {
 type = "expression"
 expression = "${participant.attributes.tier} equals 'gold'"
 true_action_id = "gold_action_id"
 false_action_id = "standard_action_id"
 }
 }
}

Question:
When we apply this module, the flow deploys without error. However, during runtime, the expression evaluates to null or undefined, causing the flow to default to the false branch.

  1. Is the attribute path ${participant.attributes.tier} correct for Inbound Message flows, or does Web Messaging require a different namespace (e.g., ${interaction.attributes.tier})?
  2. Do we need to explicitly map these attributes using a Data Action (like genesys_cloud_routing_data_action) before they are accessible in the flow logic, or should they be available immediately upon interaction creation?
  3. Are there specific OAuth scopes or permissions required on the flow definition to access participant-level data set via the external widget?

Any insights on the correct expression syntax or required configuration steps would be appreciated.

2

I’d suggest checking out at the genesys_cloud_routing_flow resource schema. The initialContactUri for webchat must explicitly reference the participant attributes via the $webchat context object in the initialContactUri definition, not just standard variable mapping.

resource "genesys_cloud_routing_flow" "webchat_flow" {
 name = "Webchat Flow"
 type = "webchat"
 enabled = true
 
 initial_contact_uri = "architect://?flowId=${genesys_cloud_routing_flow.webchat_flow.id}&webchatParticipantAttributes=${jsonencode({ "key": "$webchat.attributes.key" })}"
}
3

Yep, this is a known issue… is half right but missing the python sdk angle which is where the real pain is. the terraform resource just wraps the api but if you are doing heavy lifting or debugging, stop using the gui. use the purecloudplatformclientv2 sdk. the webchat participant attributes are not in the standard contact object until the first message is processed. you need to fetch the conversation participants explicitly. here is how i do it in my automation scripts to verify the context before routing.

from purecloudplatformclientv2 import ConversationApi, ConversationParticipant
api_instance = ConversationApi()
convo_id = "your_conversation_id"
participants = api_instance.get_conversations_web_conversation_participants(convo_id)
for p in participants.participants:
 print(p.attributes) # check if your custom keys exist here

if the attributes are null, your widget config is wrong or the flow hasn’t triggered the attribute injection yet. terraform cannot fix bad widget config. check the initial contact uri first.