What is Copilot Studio?

Microsoft Copilot Studio is an innovative graphical interface designed to create and manage copilots, introduced with latest updates during MS Build’24, over existing Power Virtual Agents. These copilots are AI-powered conversational interfaces leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) and various knowledge bases. With Copilot Studio, you can deploy your copilot across multiple platforms such as web browsers, custom websites, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Facebook, Telegram, and more. You can enhance its capabilities by integrating Power Apps to monitor performance metrics. Moreover, it supports integration with diverse knowledge sources including public databases, files, SharePoint, Dataverse, and Microsoft Fabric, enriching the copilot’s ability to generate informative responses and engage effectively. It also provides you with some default templates, which you can use to kick start your journey at https://learn.microsoft.com/copilot/.

Updates in Copilot Studio from Power Virtual Agent

Creating a New Copilot – Basic Configuration: Name your copilot, choose its language, and opt-in for boosted conversations. Advanced Settings: Customize with a unique icon, manage lesson topics, and set default solutions and schemas for new topics.

UI Overhaul – Enhanced user interface across Copilot creation, topic management, connectors, function and variable handling.

System Topics – Introduction and handling of multiple topic matches for seamless user interactions.

Enhanced Integration – Pass entire objects to Microsoft Copilot Studio via Power Automate and more robust features.

Let’s Create Our Own Copilot!

To start building your copilot, you can use either the web app or integrate directly within Microsoft Teams using Copilot Studio. We will work together to build “MLSA Guide” copilot. Here’s a quick guide to get you started:

Navigate to the Home Page

The Copilot Studio home page provides an overview of your recent copilots. From here, you can create new copilots, access recent projects, and find learning resources like documentation and tutorials

Create Your Copilot

1. Sign Up and Select Environment

Visit the Copilot Studio Introduction website, click on “Try Free,” and sign in with your email address.
Upon signing up to Copilot Studio, a default Power Platform environment is created for you. For me it is Microsoft Student Partner. Optionally, you can choose another environment from the picker.

2. Configure Your Copilot

 After signing up, you can start by describing your copilot on the home page or navigate to the Create tab.

Select “New Copilot,” provide details of your copilot on the left pane and you will see interpreted results on the right using LLM.

After you have provided with necessary details you can customize copilot name, logo and language by using ‘Skip to Configuration’ icon on right side of the page. Never, forget to test your copilot before finalizing it, using the ‘Create’ button.

Customize the Copilot

Now that you’ve built a copilot capable of answering questions about the topic, remember it hasn’t been published yet. Before proceeding with publishing, let’s delve into further modifications we can make.

Let’s Explore Different sections :-

Overview: This section provides comprehensive details about your copilot, including its name, logo, configured topics, knowledge resources, actions, and current publish status.
Knowledge: Here, you can manage and view the various resources used by your bot to respond and retrieve information. These resources include public websites, text files, authenticated SharePoint links, Fabric, Dataverse, and many more. You have the ability to add new resources or delete existing ones as needed. The Knowledge you provide assist your copilot to answer the queries. For, our copilot, I provided with the SharePoint link and some pdfs, having necessary information about the program.

3. Topics: When setting up a new copilot, you can begin by crafting topics. A topic serves as a structured dialogue tree that guides how your copilot interacts with users. It’s designed to provide a human touch and address specific inquiries systematically. For instance, in scenarios like sales where you need to initiate an order following a defined process, these steps can be outlined within topics. Some topics are predefined in your copilot like greeting, thank you, start over, conversation boosting etc. 

Let’s delve into creating a topic named “Requirement to become MLSA.” Which helps to guide students to know the requirements and path activities, they must select to join community. We will follow these steps to observe the outcome:

a. Click on Topic >”Add a topic” > “From Blank.” You can also utilize Copilot to outline your topic by providing a description. Here, we’ll start fresh with a blank template.

b. Trigger : Now we will build our topic. Start by naming your topic and configuring a Trigger. A trigger acts like a welcome phrase for your Copilot conversation. It determines when a specific topic within your Copilot should be activated based on the user asks. Click on ‘edit’ in the trigger to open ‘on recognised intent’ pane, which provides you with different properties attached with it. You can add phrases, which will appear on the right in trigger box. Once you have added all relevant trigger phrases hit ‘save’. The more phrases you include, more easily your copilot can trigger the topic.

c.  Message : Now since we have initiated a Trigger, with some defined phrases which will get activated when a user seeks answer, in our scenario to the question of the type “ How to become MLSA” . Now, it’s time to configure the answer, by adding a message box attached to trigger. You can also reply using card, images, video and more.

i. Click on ‘+’ > ‘Send a message’.

ii. Now a message box appears. Add the text to it, which will answer the user’s query.

d. Question : Now, since you have answered initial questions, there are changes that user want to be more specific. In this case, you can use and add more nodes to your current topic. Like, for our copilot, I’d like to confirm whether you need more details about the process mentioned in the message. For instance, regarding the requirements for a community builder, influencer, or startup advocate. To make this clearer, I’ve created a Multiple-Choice Question with specific properties.

Identify: This helps the copilot extract precise information from the user’s response, such as selecting from multiple choice options, listing entities, or capturing entire user responses.
Provide options for user: We have selected multiple-choice option, therefore, I’ll provide various choices. Based on the user’s selection, I’ll respond with an appropriate message. There will also be a method to handle cases where the user doesn’t choose any of the options.
Variable to save user response: Here, I’ll define the type, name, and scope of the variable to save the user’s response. I’ll use this variable in the specified choices and attach messages accordingly. 

e. Variables : Variables are used to store user responses and can have various properties attached to them. You can specify the scope, value, reference, and type of a variable such as Boolean, string, number, or choice, based on your needs. Click on ‘Variables’ to explore them. You can select any variable you wish to modify its properties. Some variables are predefined by the system, while others are custom or environment specific.

4. Test : Now, save the topic and test your copilot. If it responds according to your specifications, then congratulations! You have successfully created your topic. If not, debug it again to identify and correct any errors.

Publish–  Now it’s time publish your copilot. Click on the Publish button on top right corner of the pane. It will few seconds.
Analysis – Utilize the power of Power Apps to analyse the performance of you copilot.

7. Channels – In this section, you will see different options to deploy your copilot,  such as Teams, Facebook, a custom website, Skype, and more.

I have deployed my copilot on teams, you can access through link – Become MLSA . Here is a snapshot of it.

Resources 

Get Started with Copilot Studio
Microsoft Copilot Studio Documentation
You Tube – Link1 , Link2
Launch of Copilot MS Build’24

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog! We hope you found it informative and helpful. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to leave a comment below. Don’t forget to subscribe for more updates and insights. Happy deploying!

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