Set Participant Data action not persisting custom variables in IVR flow

Architect & Flows
1

Could someone explain why custom variables set via the ‘Set Participant Data’ action in my IVR flow are not persisting to subsequent nodes?

Background

I am using the Genesys Cloud Architect API to update an IVR flow. I added a ‘Set Participant Data’ action to store a custom variable user_segment.

Issue

The action executes without error, but when I try to read user_segment in the next decision node, it is null. Here is the JSON snippet for the action:

{
 "actionType": "setData",
 "data": {
 "user_segment": "{{flowVars.segment}}"
 }
}

Troubleshooting

I verified flowVars.segment has a value. I also tried using participantData key, but it still fails. Am I missing a scope parameter?

2

TL;DR: Verify variable scope.

Check your action configuration. Genesys Cloud isolates IVR variables from conversation-level data. Use conversationData for persistence across nodes. Here is the correct payload structure for the API:

{
 "id": "set_participant_data_action_id",
 "settings": {
 "variableName": "user_segment",
 "sourceType": "conversationData"
 }
}
3

This happens because the sourceType mismatch in the action definition. Fix the payload with the snippet below. See KB-9921 for details.

{
 "settings": {
 "variableName": "user_segment",
 "sourceType": "conversationData"
 }
}