Microsoft Copilot Studio Quick Start

Foreword xxi Chapter 1 Navigating the Copilot Ecosystem 1 What Is GenAI? 2 How Does GenAI Work? 3 GenAI Key Terms and Definitions 3 The Risk of Bias in GenAI 4 OpenAI Brings GenAI to the World 4 ChatGPT Gains Excitement 5 ChatGPT Data Leaks 5 Microsoft’s Strategic Investment in OpenAI 6 Retrieval-Augmented Generation 7 Azure OpenAI RAG Pattern 8 Enterprise Adoption of the RAG Pattern 9 Microsoft M365 Copilot 10 The Rise of the Copilots 12 Copilot, aka Bing Chat Enterprise 12 Microsoft’s Copilot Portfolio 13 Copilot for Sales 14 Copilot for Service 16 Copilot for Security 17 Copilot in Microsoft Viva 19 Viva Goals 19 Viva Engage 20 Viva Amplify 21 Viva Roadmap 22 Additional Copilots 22 Aligning Copilots with Company Personas 24 Introducing Copilot Studio 25 Conclusion 26 Chapter 2 Introduction to Copilot Studio 29 Copilot Studio’s Core Audience 29 Citizen Developers Overview 30 Citizen Developer Challenges 31 The Role of IT 32 Copilot Studio: The Platform 33 Copilot Studio Prerequisites 33 Accessing Copilot Studio 34 Power Platform Environments 35 Microsoft Dataverse 36 Dataverse Core Components 37 Environment Management 39 Creating Your First Agent 39 Adding Knowledge Sources 42 Testing Your Copilot Agent 47 Copilot Studio Topics 50 Conversational Boosting with GenAI 52 Modifying Your User Experience with Topics 55 Lights, Camera, Actions! 57 Conclusion 69 Chapter 3 Publishing Your Copilot Agent 71 Channels 71 Publishing Your Agent to Teams + Microsoft 365 74 Publishing Your Agent 79 Testing Your Agent in Microsoft Teams and M365 Copilot 86 Conclusion 90 Chapter 4 Microsoft 365 Copilot Declarative Agents 91 The Spectrum of Copilot Agents 91 M365 Copilot Agents 92 Declarative Copilot Agents 93 The Agent App Package 93 App Manifest 93 App Icons 94 Declarative Agents Manifest 94 Plugin Manifest 95 Configuration Options 96 The AI Orchestrator 96 Creating a Declarative M365 Copilot Agent with the Copilot Studio Agent Builder 97 Configuring Your Agent 98 Setting Instructions 99 Configuring Knowledge 101 Actions and Capabilities 103 Starter Prompts 104 Creating Your Agent 105 Adjusting Sharing Permissions 106 Application Manifest: Manifest.json 108 The DeclarativeAgent_0.json File 110 Code Versus Configuration 112 Test Driving Your Agent 112 Updating Your Declarative Agent 114 Copilot Studio Agent Builder Limitations 115 Data Storage 115 Application Lifecycle Management 116 User Experience 116 When to Use Declarative Agents 117 Conclusion 118 Chapter 5 Planning ALM for Your Copilot Agents 119 The ALM Framework 120 Requirements Gathering 120 Design 121 Development 121 Testing 122 Deployment 122 Maintenance and Retirement 123 ALM Summary 123 Power Platform Environments 123 Environment Strategy 124 Environment Costs 124 Managed Environments 125 Managed Environments Considerations 127 Solutions 127 Creating a Solution 129 Exporting a Solution 132 Importing a Solution 135 CI/CD Pipelines 140 Conclusion 141 Chapter 6 Deep Dive into Agent Templates 143 Prerequisites 144 Selecting Our Agent Template 145 Citizen Services Template 146 Knowledge Sources 146 Topics 147 Apply for a Service Topic 148 Data Collection Topic and Adaptive Cards 149 Road Closures Topic 154 Conversational Boosting Topic 155 Summarizing Topics 157 Building Our Agent from the Citizen Services Template 157 Updating Knowledge Sources 158 Updating Topics 159 Testing Your Agent 166 Conclusion 169 Chapter 7 Real-World Use Cases and Inspiration 171 Agents in the Contact Center 171 The Scenario 172 Technical Setup 173 Testing the Contact Center Agent 175 Contact Center Charlie Agent Summary 176 Agents in the Public Sector 176 Technical Setup 176 Testing Our Shared Mailbox Agent 182 Summary of the Shared Mailbox Agent 185 Agents in Human Resources 186 Technical Setup 186 Testing Your Heidi from HR Agent 194 Summary of the Updated Heidi from HR Agent 195 Conclusion 195 Chapter 8 Building an Autonomous Agent 197 Autonomous vs. Semi-autonomous Agents 197 Considerations for Autonomous Agents 198 How Microsoft’s Autonomous Agents Work 198 Autonomous Agent Use Case 199 Microsoft Form Configuration 200 Salesforce Sales Cloud Setup 201 Configuring Your Agent 202 Enabling Orchestration 203 Creating a Trigger 204 Configuring your Trigger 207 Setting Up Knowledge Sources 213 Creating Actions 218 Creating Inputs 220 Formatting Variables 221 Getting the Account ID 222 Creating a Condition 224 Creating a Contact 226 Creating an Opportunity 227 Associating Your Opportunity to a Contact 228 Configuring “Run as” User 231 Configuring the Create Lead Action 232 Configuring Your Agent Instructions 235 Testing Your Agent 236 Publishing and Monitoring 242 Conclusion 242 Chapter 9 Optimizing and Measuring Your Agent 245 Prerequisites 245 Agent Analytics 246 Optimizing Your Agent for Cost 248 Enhancing User-Focused Agent Performance 251 Quick Replies 251 Starter Prompts 253 Capturing User Feedback 255 Conclusion 265 Chapter 10 Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry: Better Together 267 Azure AI Search 268 Optimizing for Cost 269 Creating Your Azure SQL Database 269 Creating a Table and Loading Data 274 Provisioning Azure AI Search 276 Configuring Your Agent for Azure AI Search 286 Testing Your Agent 288 Conclusion 289 Appendix Agent Flows 291 Index 297