Team Knowledge Inbox Assistant monitors a shared team inbox, researches each question in an incoming email against the agent’s own knowledge sources, and replies to the original sender in the same email thread with a sourced, professional HTML response.
How it works
Shared mailbox email -> Team Knowledge Inbox Agent -> Check whether a reply is needed condition -> Reply to original email.
- The workflow starts when a new message arrives in the shared mailbox’s Inbox and passes the message body to the agent.
- Team Knowledge Inbox Agent uses Claude Opus 5 with the
email-question-research-replyskill. It extracts every question, researches each one strictly against its configured knowledge sources, cites a source link for each answer, lists the questions the sources cannot answer, and suggests two to four follow-up questions. Web search is disabled and the agent is instructed not to use general knowledge. - The agent returns structured output that drives the workflow:
EmailReply: the reply body, already formatted as HTML the way it should appear in the email.ReplyNeeded: a Yes/No flag the agent sets when a reply is warranted.
- The Check whether a reply is needed condition branches on
ReplyNeeded. No ends the run without sending anything. Yes continues to Reply to original email, which usesEmailReplyas the body. - The reply is sent from the shared mailbox to the triggering message using its message ID. The agent has no email tools and cannot choose another message or recipient.
Emails with no question, such as an FYI, an automated notification, or a
thank-you note, set ReplyNeeded to No and produce no reply. Emails with
questions the knowledge sources do not cover still get a reply that states
plainly which questions could not be answered.
Configuration
| Setting | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Shared mailbox address | The trigger and the reply action use team-inbox@example.com. Replace this placeholder in both places with your team’s shared mailbox. |
| Folder | The trigger monitors the shared mailbox’s Inbox. |
| Knowledge sources | None are included. Add your own to the agent after import. |
| Agent model | Claude Opus 5. |
The trigger has no subject, sender, or attachment filters, so every new Inbox message starts a run.
Required setup: add your own knowledge sources
The agent ships without any knowledge sources. This is intentional, but it means the agent cannot answer questions until you add your own. After import, add the approved sources (for example, your team’s SharePoint sites, documents, or public documentation) in Copilot Studio and wait until they are ready. Without them, every question is reported as unanswered.
Web search is disabled, and the agent is instructed not to use general knowledge, so its answers only reflect the sources you configure.
Customizations
Point the trigger at your own shared mailbox, then adjust:
- Trigger filters such as subject, sender, or folder if the inbox receives mail that should not be researched.
- Knowledge sources to match the topics your team’s inbox receives.
- Reply format and tone in the agent instructions and the skill. Keep the
reply as plain HTML so
EmailReplycan be sent as written. - When to reply in the agent’s
ReplyNeededdecision, for example if messages that only partly match your sources should not get a reply.
Keep the agent free of email tools and keep the reply bound to the triggering message, so it cannot change the recipient or thread.
Prerequisites
- A Power Platform environment where you can import the solution, with access to Copilot Studio, the AI workflow capabilities, and the selected agent model, plus the applicable licensing and capacity.
- An Office 365 Outlook connection whose account can access the shared mailbox and has permission to send from it.
- Knowledge sources the agent is allowed to use.
Import
Download the rebuilt solution ZIP from this page and import it through Power Platform.
- Authorize the Office 365 Outlook and Microsoft Copilot Studio connection references.
- Replace
team-inbox@example.comwith the team’s shared mailbox address in both the trigger and the reply action. - Add and review the knowledge sources the agent is allowed to use (see Required setup).
- Test with a non-production shared mailbox using an email with questions, an email with no question, and an email whose questions your sources do not cover.
- Enable the workflow.
The trigger handles new arrivals; it does not maintain a persistent idempotency ledger for manual replays or duplicate deliveries.