GUIDE: COPILOT AGENT CONFIGURATION ADDS SIGNIFICANT PRODUCTIVITY.
#Microsoft365, #SharePoint, #Productivity, #Copilot, #Copilot Agents
Author: Jonathan Stuckey
Audience: Information managers, Solution designer, Subject-experts (end-users), and Project managers.
Simple configuration options with more impact than expected
Adding Microsoft 365 Copilot can seem both and expensive toy and a necessary hike for advancing your organisation's capability. Microsoft's announcement about enabling Copilot Agents in SharePoint is seemingly a bit meh, until you realise the Microsoft 365 Copilot license allows you to run it without extra costs - then the realisation of what you can do using the Agent wizard is: Wow! Holly smokes.
Someone just changed my (professional) life.
Microsoft 365 and SharePoint are seen as the standard business toolset which nearly every organisation has access today. Often SharePoint (or OneDrive) are just seen as replacing one folder hierarchy with another for the end user. Not anymore. Copilot Agents in SharePoint just ripped the rug of complacency out from under anyone using SharePoint today.
The ease of use and deployment is just mental:
pre-populated agents on sites from when license is enabled;
1-click model for your own agent with form-driven configuration based on content location and type,
and 1-click step-up into Copilot Studio for extending the Knowledge and Topics usable.
It seems just too easy.
Whether for a personal assistant, or publishing for groups of users, or everyone - it all just works. I am soooooo annoyed there's nothing to be annoyed about. And as Daniel Anderson say's - this is the worst this experience will be. It will only get better (fingers crossed).
How do I get this benefit?
There's a couple of basic things to do up front, even if you want it right now. First (and most galling for someone who avidly advocates for using what you have before spending) ...you need another license. Nuts.
Table: Steps to enabling and using Copilot Agents in SharePoint
# | Action | Required Access | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Buy Microsoft 365 Copilot Licensing | Global Admin; Billing Administrator | Microsoft 365 Admin Center |
2 | Allocate license to user* | Global Admin; License Administrator | Microsoft 365 Admin Center |
3 | Access SharePoint Site | Site Owner or Site Collection Admin | SharePoint Site |
4 | Create Copilot Agent | Site Owner or Site Collection Admin | SharePoint Site |
5 | Customise Copilot Agent | Site Owner or Site Collection Admin | SharePoint Site |
6 | Share Copilot Agent with Team | Site Owner or Site Collection Admin | SharePoint Site |
Literally that's it for the basic technical setup ...unless you'd like to keep your job?
Applying the basic governance
If this was me, I would be looking at the 101 for tenancy governance, to help in manage prevention of accidental risks eventuating with oversharing and inappropriate information access. So, in order of ease to address:
Update the Copilot settings in Microsoft 365 Admin Centre
Update the Self-service trials and settings in Microsoft 365 Admin Centre
Check and limit the Sharing settings in SharePoint Admin Center
I have included some of the actions for these in following sections. SharePoint admin settings are for another time.
Update Copilot settings in admin
From the Microsoft 365 Administration Centre
[USEFUL] In Copilot diagnostic logs - Copilot - Microsoft 365 admin center
note: work with your desktop mgmt person because this is in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center
[BLOCKS RISK] On Microsoft 365 Copilot self-service purchases - select "Do Not Allow", and click Save
[USEFUL] On Optional connected experiences - Go to Cloud Policy to configure optional and update Copilot policies
note: this takes you to Cloud Policy service - Microsoft 365 Apps admin center which is the replacement for office desktop policies
You can fiddle with the rest if you like, but there's not a significant impact (except for Copilot in Microsoft Teams meetings), and that probably shouldn't worry you too much as that Requires yet another license for your users (i.e. Microsoft Teams Premium license)
Personally, I would look into the Data Security and Compliance here for managing your environment, unless you want to be the face of the news anytime soon for Privacy breach, Data-leakage etc then you should look into it.
The Data Security and Compliance area is all about Data and Information Governance services, which are managed from Purview. If you are interested in this Spoke off a range of capability enablement on these in our Service Offerings.
Using the Copilot Agents in SharePoint
Well, the baby-steps are pointing the agent creator at a single folder, or even just a couple of documents, and saying Go ahead, make my day!
Steps
As Site-Owner/Site-collection admin
Go to SharePoint site
Click on the Copilot logo - on site, library, list, home-page..
Click 'create a copilot agent'
On the dialogue click 'Edit'
The configuration dialogue opens
Step through options:
Identity tab: add a name, icon and brief description of scope the agent has
Sources tab: provide site (source) location or locations (plural) that are authoritative sources - these are promoted above any other source
Behaviour tab: provide the service guidance on interactions with user, examples of follow-up prompts (questions, requested actions)
Click Save
What next? Invest in advanced governance
To address Generative AI adoption though we need to take on more of practical aspects of security, privacy and lifecycle management of sites and the Copilot agents & bots:
Enable and configure SharePoint Advanced Management* site access restriction & lifecycle mgmt.,
Introduce role-based access and delegated permissions, along with access controls,
Enable and configure Purview Information Governance^ services: Audit, Information Protection, Data-loss Prevention, Content Retention.
*SAM functionality has additional license cost from Microsoft, and most of the options currently can be achieved without buying SAM and just using PowerShell.
^Purview services are bundled with the Microsoft 365 Business Premium, and E-plan licensing, or through an extension component license. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/purview-billing-models for details.
But the real value is if you have been doing anything useful in way of managing your content in SharePoint Online.
Avoiding the dis-organized chaos of SharePoint Document Management
We all know what we should have done, because hindsight is always 20:20, but content lifecycle management: the introduction of basic metadata, useful navigation guides that help identify and collect related content together makes not only the adoption of agents easier, but also significantly more supportable.
Effective information management (IM) practices in SharePoint ensure documents and information (often as Lists), are well-organized, easily accessible, and securely managed. The most obvious five practices to enhance document management functionality in SharePoint actually making end-user's life in creating and using Copilot Agents simpler.
Fundamental IM practices that should be applied in SharePoint:
Structure: Organise documents into groupings of hubs, sites, and libraries with clear naming conventions and folder structures.
Metadata and Tagging: Use metadata and tagging to categorise documents, making it easier to search and filter information.
Permissions and Access Control: Set up appropriate permissions to ensure that only authorised users can access or modify documents.
Version Control: Enable version control to track changes and maintain a history of document revisions.
Search Configuration: Optimise the search functionality by configuring search scopes, refiners, and managed properties to help users quickly locate relevant documents.
Using these practices, users can efficiently identify, locate, and reference associated documents or information in SharePoint. A structured approach to the storage environment allows Copilot agents to function more effectively, providing accurate and timely assistance to users.
These practices facilitate continuous improvement and maintenance of Copilot agents, ensuring they remain valuable information assets in managing and navigating SharePoint’s vast document repositories. This is largely because it caters to the lowest, least complex mode of thought (read: parsing) and navigation for the Copilot Agent. i.e. A folder file-plan.
Personally, I'm not overly happy with the enforced physical 'file-plan' approach to filing content which Microsoft has continually rammed down the user's throats with OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, etc but it does lend itself to a visually consistent and obvious set of guides for end-users.
We are not going to solve all the potential problems with lifecycle management and clean-up of redundant agents here, but lifecycle is as important for an agent as it is for a document, if you want to use it in the future.
Summary
If you are using Microsoft 365 Copilot in Office applications, and you have documents and content stored in SharePoint Online, Microsoft has enabled your users with some simple, but wonderfully useful functionality - whether you want them to use it or not.
Copilot Agents in SharePoint are ridiculously easy to implement and provide enormous productivity boost straight away for your users. They are also potentially massively dangerous if not properly understood and your users are not au-fait with the practicalities of using Copilot toolset in context.
We were able to provide a useful and targeted AI experience over our corporate IP, reference content and project outputs in minutes - and it was usable straight away BUT we had the advantage of some applied Information Mgmt controls in place on the core content being surfaced and used to ground the agents, AND our early users knew when something or specific items were missing or not accurately represented.
An Afterword: the cautionary tale
This capability is a fundamental shift, and it is easy to get into, but don't be blind to the fact it will need feeding and reviewing and proper training and organisational understanding of where it fits and how to use - not just for your users. You will need custodians and content stewards.
Ultimately the user is responsible for its use day-to-day, and you should be held accountable if you do so ignorantly and take what you get from the Agents blindly without asking the precautionary questions, like: is this answer correct?
Want to know what we know? Give us a call!
If you want the best experience for your users, you need to know how to get more from Copilot in your organisation and not get lost in the noise from Microsoft. If you want to know about getting more out of SharePoint, Office and Microsoft 365 Copilot in your tenancy, drop us a line: hi@timewespoke.com
About the author: Jonathan Stuckey
About this article: No Generative AI was used in the creation of this article.
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