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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, Recruit. 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.

This mission uses the classic Copilot Studio UI

Microsoft Copilot Studio is rolling out a new user experience (UI). The screenshots and steps in this mission use the classic experience. If your screen looks different, turn off New Experience in the upper-right corner before you continue.

🔎 Objectives ​

In this mission, you’ll learn:

  1. How to obtain a Microsoft 365 account
  2. How to gain access to Microsoft Copilot Studio
  3. When a Microsoft 365 Copilot license is needed for production publishing
  4. How to create a developer environment for Copilot Studio
  5. How to create a SharePoint site that later missions use as a data source

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:

Acquire a paid Microsoft 365 Business subscription:

  1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Business Plans and Pricing page.

  2. Select the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan, then select Try for free. Complete the guided form with your subscription, account, and payment information.

    Microsoft 365 Business Basic trial signup page

  3. Sign in with your new account after setup is complete.

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. Learn more about this add-on license on the Microsoft 365 Copilot plans page.

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 the Copilot Studio trial signup page.

  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. Confirm that Copilot Studio recognizes your account, then 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 the Microsoft 365 admin center.

  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 the Power Platform admin center.

  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 Edit (pencil icon) for the Copilot Studio authors setting.

    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 needs to be created, which will be used in Mission 06 when you add a SharePoint knowledge source.

  1. In Power Apps or the Microsoft 365 admin center, select App launcher (grid icon) 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. After the SharePoint site home page loads, copy the SharePoint site URL.

  8. This template provides pages with sample data about various IT policies and two sample lists (Tickets and Devices).

Use Devices SharePoint list ​

We will use the Devices list in Mission 07.

Devices list

Add new column ​

In the Devices list, navigate to the end of the columns and select + Add column.

Add column

Choose the hyperlink type, enter Image for the column name, and select add.

Create sample data in Devices SharePoint list ​

You need to make sure you fill in this list with at least 4 sample data items and add one additional column to this list.

When adding sample data, make sure that the following fields are filled out:

  • Device photo - use the device images below
  • Title
  • Status
  • Manufacturer
  • Model
  • Asset Type
  • Color
  • Serial Number
  • Purchase Date
  • Purchase Price,
  • Order #
  • Image - use the following links
DeviceURL
Surface Laptop 13Surface Laptop 13 image
Surface Laptop 15Surface Laptop 15 image
Surface ProSurface Pro image
Surface StudioSurface Studio image

✅ Mission Complete ​

You’ve successfully:

  • Development environment: Set up a Microsoft 365 developer environment
  • Copilot Studio access: Activated a Copilot Studio trial
  • SharePoint site: Created a site for grounding agents
  • Device data: Populated the Devices list for use in later missions

Next, continue to Mission 01: Introduction to Agents.

📚 Tactical Resources ​

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