The Microsoft 365 Commercial Support Team resolves customer support cases and provides support to help you be successful and realize the full potential and value of your purchase. Our support services extend across the entire lifecycle and include pre-sales, onboarding and deployment, usage and management, accounts and billing, and break-fix support. We also spend a considerable amount of time working to improve the supportability of Microsoft 365 services to reduce the number of issues you experience as well as minimize the effort and time it takes to resolve your issues if they do occur.  

Today, we’re excited to share more about some of our supportability work with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.  

In November 2023, we posted our first article on Copilot for Microsoft 365 sharing some initial insights and guidance from the customer support team’s perspective.  Even though it seems like yesterday much has happened since then and we’ve continued to learn from all customers as they rapidly adopt and use Microsoft Copilot to increase their productivity, collaboration, and creativity every day.    

Our published guidance and resources have continued to grow and expand too, and today we’ll share answers to some of the top questions we hear from customers along with some of our favorite resources to help you better prepare and learn more.  

Plan & Deploy  

Q: What are the prerequisites for my organization to use Copilot for Microsoft 365?  

A: Copilot has specific licensing prerequisites and deployment requirements and  most of these parallel the requirements to use Microsoft 365 Apps. Note that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a user-based license and requires that Microsoft 365 Apps on a Windows desktop are deployed using a user-based license. More information on prerequisites here > Get started with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn  

Q: What model does Copilot for Microsoft 365 use and are there any limits on number and length of conversations or file uploads?  

A: Some important updates that apply to this were recently shared on April 2.  All licensed commercial customers will have priority access to GPT-4 Turbo in Copilot for Microsoft 365.  Limits on the number of chats per day and the number of turns per conversation have been removed.  File uploads are unlimited up to 2 GB uploads per day.  More information on the recent announcements here > Bringing the latest capabilities to Copilot for Microsoft 365 customers | Microsoft 365 Blog  

Q: Are there any special considerations when using Microsoft Purview information protection capabilities with Copilot for Microsoft 365?  

A: Yes.  Before deploying Copilot, take time to get familiar with information protection considerations and ways to strengthen your data protection solutions when using Microsoft Purview. More information on deploying with Microsoft Purview here > Considerations for deploying Microsoft Purview data security and compliance protections for Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft Learn  

Q: How does semantic index work with Copilot and what are the supported content types?  Is there anything I can do as an administrator to prepare and manage the sematic index?  

A: The semantic index enhances Microsoft Copilot and search results in the Microsoft 365 applications, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Teams by creating two indexes, one for user-level content and data, and one for tenant-level content and data.  Each supports different file types with the latest illustrated here:  

There are optional steps that administrators can take if they wish.  More information on semantic index here > https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftsearch/semantic-index-for-copilot  

Q: Is there anything special I need to think about with network planning and endpoints?  

A: Copilot services connect to endpoints within the Microsoft 365 Endpoint taxonomy.  As with other Microsoft 365 services, it’s recommended to align networks with the Microsoft 365 Network Connectivity Principles for optimal performance and security.  

Q: Where can I learn more about Copilot for Microsoft 365 privacy and security and how our data is handled when my users interact with Copilot?  

A: In early March, additional data residency capabilities were announced here. Full details on data, privacy, and security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 can be found here > Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn  

Q: Does Microsoft have a playbook or set of resources to help me plan and implement Copilot for Microsoft 365 for my organization and drive successful adoption?  

A: Comprehensive resources are available to assist in discovering, planning, and implementing Copilot for organizations of all sizes. This includes guidance for working across leadership, IT, and end users.  A full set of adoption resources can be found here > Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Microsoft Adoption  

Manage & Use  

Q: What level of controls are available to IT Admins for Copilot for Microsoft 365?  

A: By using the Copilot page in the Microsoft 365 admin center, IT Admins can manage how users in their organization interact with Copilot for Microsoft 365.  More information on Copilot management capabilities here > Manage Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 with the Copilot page | Microsoft Learn  

Q: What languages does Copilot for Microsoft 365 support?  

A: Support for an additional 16 languages was recently announced.  Details on Copilot supported languages here > Supported languages for Microsoft Copilot – Microsoft Support  

Q: I assigned a Copilot license to a user but it’s not showing up for them. What should I do?  

A: After assigning a Copilot license to a user, it can take up to 72 hours for the background refresh of the license to take effect and for Copilot to show up in applications. Administrators can force a refresh by applying the File > Account > Update license button (located directly under the Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise logo).    

More information here > How to find and enable missing Copilot button in Microsoft 365 apps – Microsoft Support  

Q: Ok, so Copilot still doesn’t show up in Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word… what now?  

A: This will happen if Connected Experiences have been turned off in your organization (which enables analyzing of content for Microsoft 365 apps) including when users are using Windows Information Protection or Microsoft Defender Application Guard. To enable Copilot in this scenario, policy settings for connected experiences will need to be turned on. The following are indications that Connected Experiences are disabled:   

Office Cloud policy for “Allow the use of connected experiences in Office that analyze content” is disabled.  
Office ULS log shows “Data.IsPrivacyEnabled”:false” in the  Office.AugLoop.Client.Liblet.StartRuntimeAttempt event.  
Either of these registry keys are enabled:  

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftoffice16.0commonPrivacyusercontentdisabled  
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftoffice16.0commonPrivacydisconnectedstate  

More information on connected experience settings here > Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn  

Q: My users are getting mixed results when working with large documents and Copilot in Word. Any tips?  

A: When referencing documents with Copilot in Word, try to limit your document size to 20 pages and 15,000 words or less. This is the sweet spot for Copilot to work effectively. More information on working with Copilot in Word here > Keeping it short and sweet: a guide on the length of documents that you provide to Copilot – Microsoft Support  

Q: My users are really excited about the email summarization, drafting, and coaching capabilities with Copilot in Outlook but are running into occasional issues. Any limitations to be aware of?  

A: Copilot scenarios in Outlook are only available on a user’s primary mailbox and not with shared, archived, group, or delegated mailboxes. With Coaching by Copilot, a user’s email draft needs to be at least 100 characters to use the Coaching capability. There’s no limit on prompt length when using Draft with Copilot.  More information on working with Outlook here > Frequently asked questions about Copilot in Outlook – Microsoft Support  

Q: Users are bumping into some latency issues when working with Copilot in Excel. Any suggestions?  

A: Copilot in Excel works for Excel tables of up to 2 million cells. Skills like formula column suggestions, highlight, sort, and filter do not have data limits. Keep in mind that it can take some time to get a response when working with large tables. Note that Copilot in Excel only works with files that are hosted in OneDrive or Microsoft 365 SharePoint locations and have Autosave turned on.  More information on working with Excel here > Frequently asked questions about Copilot in Excel – Microsoft Support  

Q: What are some things my users can do to get better performance when using Copilot in Microsoft Teams?   

A: Limit questions to topics covered in the chat or meeting.  When conducting meetings and calls, speak or chat in supported languages. With chat scenarios, keep in mind that Copilot can only process as far back as 30 days from the last message sent. This may be further limited by retention policies that are set within your organization.  More information on working with Microsoft Teams here > Frequently asked questions about Copilot in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Support  

Q: Some of my users are seeing issues or missing results when retrieving files to reference in Copilot with Word Online, PowerPoint Online, and Excel Online. What’s causing this?  

A: For Copilot to work with Office web applications like Word Online, PowerPoint Online, and Excel Online, third-party cookies must be enabled. Blocking third-party cookies will result in a failure when retrieving files to reference. More information on requirements here > https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/microsoft-365-copilot-requirements  

Q: I have users that aren’t seeing relevant documents or information, including personalized content (fx. suggested meeting hours) when using Copilot. Is there a way to fix this?  

A: This may be related to semantic index. Check and make sure Enterprise Search is enabled in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. And then make sure Item insights are enabled. Having Item or People insights turned off will reduce the Microsoft Search and semantic index experience. More information here > https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftsearch/semantic-index-for-copilot   

Copilot, Your Support Assistant  

Finally, keep in mind that you can always use Copilot as your support and troubleshooting assistant and even ask it to provide suggested prompts to use for ways it can help with different scenarios. Below is a quick example using Copilot in the browser.  There’s  a great mobile app (powered by GPT-4!) too.  

As with any scenario, make sure to use good prompting techniques to help Copilot provide the responses and results that you want. This includes:  
 

Providing complete details and sufficient context about the scenario or issue.  
Instructing on any specific information sources that Copilot should use when responding.  
Guiding how Copilot responds by telling it to act like a certain role or expert (e.g. “act like a technical expert on Exchange Online” or “act like a solution architect specializing in Teams meeting rooms and calling”).  
Consider the sequence and order of the context, example, and instruction details in your prompts. Experimenting with the order and when specific sources are referenced can have an impact on the quality of responses.  
Focusing on positive instructions and telling Copilot what to do (versus what not to do) often generates the best results.    

 
There’s a ton of great learning and resource material out there on prompt engineering. If you need a starting point, take a look at these resources > Learn about Copilot prompts – Microsoft Support and Copilot Lab (cloud.microsoft).  

Hope you found this helpful, and we’ll continue to share updates from our Copilot journey here in Microsoft 365 commercial support!  

 Brian Stoner is a Director in the CSS Modern Work Supportability Team where he leads a team of technical and business program managers.  

The CSS Modern Work Supportability Team delivers innovative self-help solutions and diagnostics, in-service enhancements, and support programs to help customers get maximum value from their Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions and create an easy-to-use, connected support experience.  

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