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🚨 Mission 00: Course Setup ​

🕵️ CodenameOPERATION DEPLOYMENT READY⭐ Difficulty⏱️ Time 30 min 🧩 ProductsMicrosoft Copilot StudioSharePointMicrosoft 365🏷️ TagsEnvironment Setup🏭 IndustriesIT

🎯 Mission Brief ​

Welcome to the first mission of your training as a Copilot Studio Agent.
Before you can start building your first AI agent, you need to establish your field-ready development environment.

This briefing outlines the systems, access credentials, and setup steps required to successfully operate in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

🔎 Objectives ​

Your mission includes:

  1. Getting a Microsoft 365 account
  2. Gaining access to Microsoft Copilot Studio
  3. (Optional) Securing a Microsoft 365 Copilot license for production publishing
  4. Creating a developer environment as your Copilot Studio environment to build in
  5. Creating a SharePoint site to serve as your data source in later missions

IMPORTANT

Already have access to Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and Copilot Studio? Steps 1–4 below walk you through creating a new trial environment from scratch. If you already have a Microsoft 365 business tenant with access to Power Platform and Copilot Studio, you can skip directly to Step 5: Create new SharePoint site. Steps 1–4 are only needed if you want to set up a dedicated trial environment to test these capabilities.

🔍 Prerequisites ​

Before you begin, ensure you have:

  1. A work or school email address (personal @outlook.com, @gmail.com, etc., are not supported).
  2. Access to the internet and a modern browser (Edge, Chrome, or Firefox recommended).
  3. Basic familiarity with Microsoft 365 (for example, signing into Office apps or Teams).
  4. (Optional) A credit card or billing method if you plan to purchase paid licenses.

🧪 Trial Environment Setup (Steps 1–4) ​

Step 1: Get a Microsoft 365 Account ​

Copilot Studio resides within Microsoft 365, so you need a Microsoft 365 account to access it. You can either use an existing account if you have one or follow these steps to get an appropriate license:

  1. Acquire a Paid Microsoft 365 Business Subscription
    1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Business Plans and Pricing Page
    2. The cheapest option to get you started is the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan. Select Try for free and walk through the guided form to fill in your subscription and account details and payment information. Microsoft 365 developer program signup page
    3. Once you have your new account, log in.

TIP

If you plan to publish agents into Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat or connect to organizational data (SharePoint, OneDrive, Dataverse), a Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required. This is an add-on license which you can learn more about on the licensing site

Step 2: Start a Copilot Studio Trial ​

Once you have your Microsoft 365 tenant, you need to get access to Copilot Studio. You can get a free 30-day trial by following these steps:

  1. Navigate to aka.ms/TryCopilotStudio.

  2. Enter the email address from the new account you configured in the previous step and select Next.

    Copilot Studio free trial welcome screen

  3. It should recognize your account. Select Sign In.

    Microsoft account sign-in for Copilot Studio

  4. Select Start Free Trial.

    Start free Copilot Studio trial page

Trial Notes

  1. The free trial provides full Copilot Studio capabilities.
  2. You will receive email notifications about your trial expiration. You can extend the trial in 30-day increments (up to 90 days of agent runtime).
  3. If your tenant administrator disabled self-service sign-up, you’ll see an error—contact your Microsoft 365 admin to re-enable it.

Step 3: Create new developer environment ​

Sign up for a Power Apps Developer Plan ​

Using the same Microsoft 365 tenant in Step 1, sign up for a Power Apps Developer Plan to create a free development environment to build and test with Copilot Studio.

  1. Sign up on the Power Apps Developer Plan website.

    • Enter your email address
    • Tick the checkbox
    • Select Start free

    Sign up for Power Apps Developer Plan

  2. After signing up for the Developer Plan, you'll be redirected to Power Apps. The environment uses your name, for example Adele Vance's environment. If there's already an environment with that name, the new developer environment is named Adele Vance's (1) environment.

    Use this developer environment in Copilot Studio when completing the labs.

NOTE

If you are using an existing Microsoft 365 account and did not create one in Step 1, for example, using your own account in your work organization, your IT administrator (or the equivalent) team who manages your tenant/environments might have turned off the sign-up process. In this case, please contact your administrator, or create a test tenant as per Step 1.

If you are using an existing environment from your organization, ensure it is not a managed environment. Managed environment restrictions can prevent certain features — such as adding Power Automate flows as agent tools — from working correctly.

Step 4: Enable Ability to Publish with the Copilot Studio Trial ​

The Copilot Studio trial recently changed and it does not allow publishing of agents by default. To enable publishing, you have to add yourself to the Copilot Studio Authors role in the Power Platform Admin Center.

First, you need a security group to hold everyone you want to be able to publish. This is what you'll associate with the Copilot Studio Authors role.

  1. Navigate to admin.cloud.microsoft

  2. Expand the Teams & groups tab and select Active teams & groups

    Teams and groups in admin center

  3. Select the Security groups tab and select Add a security group

    Security groups tab in admin center

  4. Give the security group a name like AgentCreators and select the Next button.

    Enter a name for security group

  5. Verify the name and select Create group

    Create the configured security group

  6. Select your newly created security group from the list

    Select the newly created security group

  7. Select the members tab and select view all and manage members

    Open members for the security group

  8. Select add members

    Add members to the security group

  9. Select your name from the list and select Add then Add again

    Select your account as group member

  10. Navigate to admin.powerplatform.com

  11. Select the manage tab

    Manage tab in Power Platform admin center

  12. Select the tenant settings tab

    Tenant settings in Power Platform admin center

  13. Select the Copilot Studio authors option

    Copilot Studio authors security settings

  14. Select the pencil icon

    Edit Copilot Studio author security settings

  15. Select your security group from the list and select Done

    Select security group for Copilot Studio authors

  16. Verify your security group is there and select Save

    Save Copilot Studio author security settings

🔧 Required Setup (Everyone) ​

The following steps are required regardless of whether you're using a trial or an existing environment.

Step 5: Create new SharePoint site ​

A new SharePoint site is required for completing Mission 04 - Build an agent with the GitHub Copilot harness. In this step, you'll also create a new list in that site to store available devices.

  1. Select the waffle icon in the top-left corner of Power Apps or the Microsoft 365 admin center to open the app menu, then select SharePoint.

    Select SharePoint in Power Apps

    Select SharePoint in Microsoft 365 Admin Center

  2. After SharePoint loads, select Build in the left navigation menu, then select Site to create a new SharePoint site.

    Create a new SharePoint site

  3. A dialog appears to guide site creation. Under the Team site option, select IT help desk.

    Select IT help desk site template

  4. Select Use template to create a new SharePoint site from the IT help desk template.

    Use the IT help desk template

  5. Enter your site details. Example:

    FieldValue
    Site nameContoso IT
    Site descriptionCopilot Studio Agent Academy
    Site addressContosoIT

    Select Create site.

    Configure the new SharePoint site details

  6. After selecting Create site, SharePoint may take a few seconds to finish provisioning. In the meantime, you can optionally add users by entering email addresses in the Add members field.

    Once you see confirmation that the site is ready, select Go to site.

    Open the newly created SharePoint site

  7. Next, create a list to store device information. On the site's Home tab, select + New, then select List.

    Create a new SharePoint list

  8. Under the Import from section, select Excel.

    Create SharePoint list from Excel

  9. Select Upload file.

    Upload the EmployeeAssets Excel file

  10. Download the following ZIP file, extract it, then upload EmployeeAssets.xlsx to the list by selecting Open.

    Select the uploaded EmployeeAssets file

  11. Next, in the Customize step, select the EmployeeAssets table and review the detected column types. Most columns are automatically detected as Single line of text, which is common when importing an Excel file. Some column types need to be adjusted, so we'll do that next.

    Customize the imported column data types

  12. Change the following columns manually from Single line of text to Choice fields.

    ColumnUpdated Type
    StatusChoice
    ManufacturerChoice
    Asset TypeChoice

    Change column types to Choice

  13. Change the following columns manually from Single line of text to Choice, Date and time and Number fields.

    ColumnUpdated Type
    ColorChoice
    Purchase DateDate and time
    Purchase PriceNumber

    Change column types to Choice

  14. Enter EmployeeAssets as the list name, select the Show list in site navigation checkbox, then select Create.

    Create the configured EmployeeAssets list

  15. Add a new column with the type Hyperlink. Scroll across the list, select + Add column, select Hyperlink, then select Next.

    Add a new hyperlink column

  16. Enter the following information for the column and select Save.

    FieldValue
    NameImage URL
    DescriptionThe image URL of the employee asset

    Create the configured hyperlink column

  17. Copy each value from the Image column to the Image URL column. Select Edit in grid view.

    Select Edit in Grid View

  18. In the first row (the first item in the list), double-click the Image column and copy the value. Press the Esc key to exit editing.

    Open the image URL column editor

  19. Double-click the corresponding Image URL column, paste the value in the Link field, then select the check mark icon to save.

    Paste value into image URL column

  20. Repeat the same steps for the remaining three rows in the list.

  21. Lastly, delete the Image Single line of text column. Select the column, then select Column settings followed by Edit.

    Edit the unwanted SharePoint column

  22. Select Delete.

    Select delete in column settings

  23. A confirmation dialog appears. Select Delete to confirm removing the column from the list.

    Confirm deletion of the SharePoint column

✅ Mission Complete ​

You’ve successfully:

  • Set up a Microsoft 365 dev environment
  • Activated your Copilot Studio trial
  • Created a SharePoint site for grounding agents
  • Populated the EmployeeAssets list for use in future missions

You're officially cleared to begin your Recruit-level agent training in Lesson 01.

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