Lab MCS4 - Extending Microsoft 365 Copilot

Do these labs if you want to build agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio

In this lab, you are going to learn how to extend Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat with a custom agent made using Microsoft Copilot Studio. In fact, so far you have seen how to create agents in Copilot Studio and how to consume them in Microsoft Teams. Now, with this lab, you are moving to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

In this lab you will learn:

How to create an agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat
How to configure a custom icon for your agent
How to configure knowledge sources for your agent
How to publish the agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat
How to create an action for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Exercise 1 : Creating an agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

In this excercise you are going to create an agent with Microsoft Copilot Studio and hosting it in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

Step 1: Creating an agent for Copilot Chat

To create an agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat you need to 1️⃣ browse the list of agents in Copilot Studio and 2️⃣ select the agent with name Copilot for Microsoft 365.

The interface of Microsoft Copilot Studio when browsing the whole list of agents and selecting the **Copilot for Microsoft 365** agent.

A new section of Microsoft Copilot Studio will open. From there, you can select the + Add command to create a new agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

The interface of Microsoft Copilot Studio editing Microsoft 365 Copilot agents. The **+ Add** button is highlighted. There is also a list of pre-defined actions.

Copilot Studio asks you to describe in natural language what the purpose of the agent is. As like as you did in Lab MCS1 you can define your agent requirements in natural language, using for example the following prompts.

You are an agent helping employees to find information about HR policies and procedures,
about how to improve their career, and about how to define learning pathways.

When requested by Copilot Studio, give the name "Agentic HR" to your custom agent. Then, instruct Copilot Studio to have specific tasks or goals with the following instruction:

Emphasize everything that helps team building, inclusion, and the growth mindset

Then, define a professional tone for your agent, providing the following input:

It should have a professional tone

The interface of Microsoft Copilot Studio when defining the agent using natural language.

Once you are done describing your agent, select the Create command to create the actual agent. Alternatively, you can select the Skip to configure command and move to the classic configuration user interface.

Once the agent has been created, you will see its configuration page, where you can define:

Details: with generic information about the agent like name, icon, description, and instructions (system prompt).
Knowledge: to define the various knowledge bases for the agent.
Actions: to define custom actions for the agent.
Additional settings: to configure whether the agent will rely on public web content or not.
Starter prompts: to configure up to 6 starter prompts that will be shown in the Copilot Chat when starting a new chat.
Publishing details: to get information about how to consume the agent, once it will be published.

The configuration page of an agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat in Microsoft Copilot Studio. There are sections to define general details, knowledge bases, actions, additional settings, starter prompts, and publishing details.

On the right side of the screen, you can already see a preview of the agent that you can use to test its behaviour. The initial setup of the agent is now ready. Move to the next steps to fine tune its settings.

End of Exercise 1, Step 1: Creating an agent for Copilot Chat
Check the box when you have completed this step.

Step 2: Updating the agent's icon

Now, you can edit the details selecting the Edit command in the upper right corner of the Details section. Once in edit mode, select the Change icon command to upload a custom icon and to select a background color for the icon itself. If you like, you can use the icon available at this link. In case you want to use the suggested icon, the background color could be #B9BAB5.

The configuration page while editing the details of the agent and specifically updading the icon of the agent.

Select the Save command to save the new icon and background color, then select the Save button again to save the updated details for the agent.

End of Exercise 1, Step 2: Updating the agent's icon
Check the box when you have completed this step.

Step 3: Adding a knowledge base to the agent

Like you did in Lab MCS1, download this zip file consisting of few files (Word, PowerPoint, PDF) by selecting this link.

Extract the files from the zip and upload them to the Documents library of a SharePoint Teams site in the same tenant where you are making your agent with Copilot Studio. These documents were generated by Microsoft 365 Copilot for the sake of having some additional knowledge base to feed the agent.

Copy the absolute url of the site. For example: https://xyz.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso

To add a knowledge source to the agent, select the + Add knowledge command in the upper right corner of the Knowledge section. A dialog window pops up and allows you to select a data source. At the moment of this writing you can select a SharePoint data source. Select the SharePoint command and browse for a site that you want to use as the data source.

The dialog to configure additional knowledge base for the agent. There is a list of **Featured** knowledge bases, where right now there is only SharePoint. There is a command to browse **Advanced** data source, too.

Paste the URL of the SharePoint Online site where you stored the documents into the dialog or select the Browse files command to search for data sources browsing the SharePoint Online sites. Once you have provided a URL or selected a data source, you need to provide a name and a meaningful description for the new knowledge base. The description will be used by Copilot to target the data source based on the user's intent defined by the user's prompt.

Select the Add button to add the new data source to the knowledge base of the agent.

Important

When configuring SharePoint Online sites as the knowledge base for an agent in Copilot Studio, users will only be able to get answers and content from documents that they have access to. The security and the access control are guaranteed by the Microsoft 365 security infrastructure and Copilot Studio agents access documents on behalf of the current user.

End of Exercise 1, Step 3: Adding a knowledge base to the agent
Check the box when you have completed this step.

Step 4: Publishing the agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Now you can publish and test the agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. 1️⃣ Select the Publish command in the upper right corner of the page to make the agent available in Copilot Chat. Then 2️⃣ fill in the details for the agent. Lastly 3️⃣ select the Publish command in the lower part of the publishing dialog.

The agent in Copilot Studio with the **Publish** button highlighted and the publishing dialog where there are fields to define, short description, long description, developer name, developer website URL, privacy statement URL, terms of use URL.

The details for the agent are those required by a Microsoft 365 application manifest:

Short description: short description of the agent (up to 30 characters).
Long description: long description of the agent (up to 100 characters).
Developer name: name of the developer (up to 32 characters).
Website: URL of the developer's website (up to 2048 characters).
Privacy statement: URL of the privacy statement (up to 2048 characters).
Terms of use: URL of the terms of use (up to 2048 characters).

Initial publishing takes quite some time, between 30 and 60 seconds. Once the agent is published, you will see a dialog with a recap of all the availability options.

The dialog confirming the successful publishing and providing a command to copy a direct link to the agent app, two commands to share the agent with selected group of people or with the whole organization, and a command to download a ZIP package to publish the agent in the store.

Specifically, you can select:

Copy command to copy a URL with a direct link to the app registered for the new agent.
Show to my teammates and shared users to share the agent with selected groups or individuals in your organization.
Show to everyone in my org to share the agent with the whole organization.
Download .zip file to download a zip package of the app that you can then upload to the Microsoft 365 store.

Show to everyone in my org

When you choose to show the agent to the whole organization, ensure your agent is ready for release and in compliance with company standards, rules, and policies. Coordinate with your teammates. Once the agent is submitted, it can't be resubmitted by others until an admin approves or rejects it. You can find additional details about publishing an app to the whole organization reading Show to the organization.

Select the Copy command, open a new browser tab, and paste the URL with the direct link to the agent. The company app store will show in the browser and a dialog will allow you to select the Add button, to add the agent to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

The company store with the agent dialog allowing to add the agent to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Once you have added the agent to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, you will find it in the list of agents in the right side of the Copilot chat, like illustrated in the following screenshot.

The "Agentic HR" agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

Select the agent and start interacting with it. For example, you can provide the following prompt:

How can we hire new people in our company?

The agent will provide you detailed information about the hiring procedures, based on the content retrieved from the documents defined in the knowledge base. For example, the main data source for the response will be the document Hiring Procedures.docx that you uploaded to SharePoint Online.

The "Agentic HR" agent in action in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, answering a prompt about the hiring procedures and providing a reference to a Word document stored in the SharePoint Online knowledge base of the agent.

End of Exercise 1, Step 4: Publishing the agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat
Check the box when you have completed this step.

Exercise 2 : Adding an action to the agent

In this excercise you are going to add a custom action to the agent that you made in the previous exercise. In Microsoft Copilot Studio, when making agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, you can add four different types of actions:

New prompt: allows consuming an AI action built using a prompt written in natural language.
New Power Automate flow: allows consuming a Power Automate flow.
New custom connector: allows consuming a Power Platform custom connector.
New REST API: allows consuming an external REST API. You can find additional details here.

Actions for agents

You can find additional information about adding actions to agents in Copilot Studio reading the article Use actions with custom agents (preview).

In this lab you are going to add an action of type New custom connector in order to retrieve a list of candidates from an Excel spreadsheet stored in SharePoint Online.

Step 1: Adding an action to an agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot

To add a new action, select the + Add action command in the Actions section of the agent's configuration panel.

The **Actions** section of an agent with the **+ Add action** command highlighted.

A dialog window pops up allowing you to choose what kind of action to create. By default, there are some Featured actions like those that allow you to interact with Excel Online content or other common services. You can also create a new action from scratch, selecting the + New action command and choosing between the options highlighted in the previous paragraphs.

If you don't find the option you are looking for in the list of featured items, simply switch to the Library group and search by text what you are looking for.

To complete the current step, choose the featured action to List rows present in a table in the family of Excel Online (Business) actions. First of all, you will need to connect to the external connector simply selecting the Next button and proceeding with the process.

The dialog to connect to the target Power Platform connector with details about the connection, a button to move next and a button to cancel the request. There is also a back button to start over.

Next, you get a dialog to configure the actual action. You need to provide:

Name: simply a descriptive name for the action.
Description: a description in natural language that will be used by generative orchestration to determine when to use your action.
Authentication settings: the settings to define how the action will rely on authentication.
Inputs and outpus: to define the input and output arguments for the action, if any.
Response settings: defines how the action handles the request and response to the user.

Before configuring the action, you need to prepare the Excel spreadsheet with the list of candidates. Download a sample Excel file by selecting this link.

Upload the file to the Documents library of a SharePoint Teams site in the same tenant where you are making your agent with Copilot Studio. The document was generated by Microsoft 365 Copilot for the sake of having a hypothetical list of candidates.

Copy the absolute url of the site. For example: https://xyz.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso/.
Copy the name of the document library. For example : Shared documents
Copy also the name of the file. For example: Sample-list-of-candidates.xlsx

Now go back to Microsoft Copilot Studio and finalize the action configuration.

The dialog to create the action with the Name, description and authentication configured. There are a button to **Add action** and a button to **Cancel** the process.

Use the following settings:

Name: List HR candidates
Description: List candidates for an HR role
Authentication: User authentication

Select the Add action button to save the new action. You will get the list of actions in Copilot Studio. Click on the action that you just created to edit its settings.

In the dialog for editing the action, update the Action name to give it a more descriptive and informative name. Then select the Inputs tab and start configuring the input arguments. By default, all the mandatory input arguments have been configured so that their value will be exctracted by the User's entire response as you can notice in the Identify as property of each input argument.

The tab to configure the input arguments of the action. There is a list of arguments with specific settings for each of them.

Select the How will the agent fill this input? setting for each of the input arguments and switch to Set as a value in order to provide static values for all of the input arguments. Confirm that you want to change the setting and proceed configuring a static value for each of the input arguments.

The configuration of the **Location** input argument where the source for the value is a static value manually configured.

Use the following static values:

Location: use the URL of the SharePoint Online site collection where you stored the Excel spreadsheet. For example: https://xyz.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso/.
Document Library: use the name of the document library where you stored the Excel spreadsheet. For example: Shared Documents.
File: provide the name of the Excel file. For example: Sample-list-of-candidates.xlsx.
Table: Candidates_Table

The list of input arguments configured accordingly to the suggested settings. Every input argument is configured with a manually provided value.

Now select the Save button in the upper right corner of the screen to save the updated action.

End of Exercise 2, Step 1: Adding an action to an agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot
Check the box when you have completed this step.

Step 2: Testing the new action

You are now ready to publish the updated agent and to play with it in the integrated test panel or in Microsoft Teams. Select the Publish button again, to update the publishing of the agent. Wait for the publishing to complete and then open again the direct link to the agent's app. You will see an Update now command instead of the Add that you saw in Exercise 1 - Step 4. Select the Update now command and wait. Once ready, go to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, refresh the page and start interacting with the updated agent.

It is really easy to invoke the just created action simply providing to the agent a prompt like the following one:

Show me the list of candidates for HR with role "HR Director" or "HR Manager"

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat will ask you the permission to consume an external API (Excel Online) and you will have to select the option to Always allow or Allow once. For the sake of testing purposes, choose Allow once so that you will be able to test the authorization process again in the future.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat asking consent to consume the external API for Excel Online. There are three command buttons to **Always allow**, **Allow once**, and **Cancel**.

Since the Power Platform connector requires a valid connection in place, the agent prompts the user to Sign in to Agentic HR before being able to consume the external data source.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat asking to sign in to consume the external Excel Online API.

Connect to the external connector and run again the prompt. The agent will reply back providing the list of candidates retrieved from the Excel spreadsheet and matching the criteria that you provided in the prompt.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat asking to sign in to consume the external Excel Online API.

Well done! You were able to consume an external connector from a Copilot Studio agent made for Microsoft 365 Copilot!

End of Exercise 2, Step 2: Testing the new action
Check the box when you have completed this step.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Start here with Lab MCS5, to learn how to use custom connectors in Copilot Studio.