[BUG] promptflow built in evaluator cannot take nested json outputs as column mapping

[yanggaome]

Describe the bug
A clear and concise description of the bug.

I am using promptflow evaluate API where I provide a target call

def target_call():
  ...
  return  {"outputs": {"outputA": "A", "outputB": "B"}}

evaluate(
  target = target_call,
  evaluators = {"content_safety": ContentSafetyEvaluator()},
  evaluator_config = {
            "content_safety": {"question": "${data.query}", "answer": "${target.outputs.outputA}"}
            },
)

using target.outputs.outputA does not work, it will complain cannot find "answer"
I can only use target.outputs. I understand this may not be a bug, it may be a feature request

Is there a way to support this?

  File "/anaconda/envs/azureml_py38/lib/python3.9/site-packages/promptflow/evals/evaluate/_evaluate.py", line 425, in _evaluate
    _validate_columns(input_data_df, evaluators, target=None, evaluator_config=evaluator_config)
  File "/anaconda/envs/azureml_py38/lib/python3.9/site-packages/promptflow/evals/evaluate/_evaluate.py", line 153, in _validate_columns
    _validate_input_data_for_evaluator(evaluator, evaluator_name, new_df)
  File "/anaconda/envs/azureml_py38/lib/python3.9/site-packages/promptflow/evals/evaluate/_evaluate.py", line 81, in _validate_input_data_for_evaluator
    raise ValueError(f"Missing required inputs for evaluator {evaluator_name} : {missing_inputs}.")
ValueError: Missing required inputs for evaluator content_safety : ['answer'].

How To Reproduce the bug
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1.

Expected behavior
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Screenshots
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Running Information(please complete the following information):

• Promptflow Package Version using pf -v: [e.g. 0.0.102309906]
• Operating System: [e.g. Ubuntu 20.04, Windows 11]
• Python Version using python --version: [e.g. python==3.10.12]

{
"promptflow": "1.13.0",
"promptflow-azure": "1.13.0",
"promptflow-core": "1.13.0",
"promptflow-devkit": "1.13.0",
"promptflow-evals": "0.3.1",
"promptflow-tracing": "1.13.0"
}

Executable '/anaconda/envs/azureml_py38/bin/python'
Python (Linux) 3.9.19 | packaged by conda-forge | (main, Mar 20 2024, 12:50:21)
[GCC 12.3.0]

Additional context
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[jomalsan]

+1 on the ability to pass nested fields to any flow as a column mapping. I believe the general case is directly tied to this bug, but I am happy to open an independent issue if preferred.

Say my input data looks like:

{
    "foo": {
        "bar": "baz"
    }
}

Then I would love to be able to pass a column mapping of:

column_mapping:
  input: ${data.foo.bar}

The reason I don't want to pass ${data.foo} and then parse out "bar" in my own code is:

• It causes a loss of typing information for inference
• Inference consumers then would need to pass a formed "foo" object as "input" instead of just the input string
• Dict inputs look ugly in the tracing UI and makes it so every point has to be clicked on to see the input

[luigiw]

Thx for the feedback! We need a standard way to allow complex json mapping. Something like json path. If you have a suggestion of an industry standard, definitely let us know. We’ll estimate and come back to this.

[mallapraveen]

do we have a solution or work around for this ?