How to build a Copilot agent: two real agents, step by step

Agent 1 · About 15 minutes once your documents are ready

Company Handbook

What it does: answers staff questions about your policies and procedures, such as time off, holidays, benefits, safety rules, vehicle use and “how do we handle a callback?”, from your own documents, and says exactly where each answer came from.

Step 1: Gather the documents

Make a SharePoint folder for the documents (or use an existing policies library):

1. Open SharePoint from the app launcher (the grid of dots at the top left of Outlook).
2. Open your company site.
3. Select Documents.
4. Select + New, then Folder, and name it Handbook.

Put in the current versions of:

• Your employee handbook, broken into sections with headings
• Time off, holidays and pay schedule
• Benefits summaries from your insurer or payroll provider
• Safety procedures, vehicle and equipment rules
• How-to procedures: opening and closing, job handoff, customer complaints

Give each policy a name and number, and give sections headings (“Leave Policy HR-03, Section 2: Accrual”). The agent names the document and section each answer came from (a citation), so clear names mean clear citations. Remove old versions. Then check who can open the folder: select it, select ⋯ (more actions), thenManage access, and remove anyone who shouldn’t see it.

Step 2: Create the agent

1. In the Copilot app, select New agent, then Skip to configure.
2. Name: Company Handbook (30 characters maximum).
3. Description: “Answers questions about our company policies and procedures, with the policy and section for every answer.”

Step 3: Paste the instructions

Instructions are the standing rules the agent follows every time. This is a shortened version. A full version runs to about 4,900 characters, well under the 8,000-character limit. Replace [Company] with your company’s name:

Two lines do most of the work. “Answers must be grounded only in the documents in the Handbook folder”(“grounded” means based on) makes it much less likely to fill gaps with generic policies from the internet. Microsoft says Agent Builder can’t fully block general knowledge, which is why the citation rule and your testing matter.“Ask one question at a time” stops it from answering “How much PTO do I get?” before it knows whether the person is full-time.

Step 4: Add knowledge and starter prompts

• Knowledge (the files the agent answers from): add the Handbook folder and nothing else. An agent pointed at your whole SharePoint will find old drafts too.
  1. In SharePoint, open the Handbook folder and copy its address from the browser’s address bar.
  2. Back in Agent Builder, paste the address into the Knowledge box and press Enter. (Or select the cloud icon, Attach cloud files, then More places, your site and the folder.)
  3. Wait a few minutes. New files show Preparing until the agent can use them.
  4. Turn on Only use specified sources.
  5. Leave Search all websites off.
• Starter prompts (sample questions shown to people when they open the agent):
  • “What types of time off can I take as a full-time employee?”
  • “What happens in my first 90 days?”
  • “What are our paid holidays this year?”
  • “What’s the procedure if a customer calls about a problem after we’ve left the job?”

  Upload the files, or link the folder?

  Agent Builder also lets you upload documents straight into the agent. That’s fine for a quick trial, but an uploaded file is a copy. When a policy changes, you have to remove the old file from the agent and upload the new one, and that’s easy to forget. Linking the SharePoint folder is better for anything you’ll keep. Update the document in the folder and the agent answers from the new version, with no one having to touch the agent.

Step 5: Test with questions you know the answers to

Select the Try it tab at the top. Ask ten questions whose answers you know, and check each response for:

1. Right answer, matching the document.
2. Right citation: the policy and section it names actually say that.
3. Right behavior when the answer isn’t there: it says so instead of making one up.

When the answers are right:

1. Select Create at the top right. The agent is now private to you.
2. Select Share.
3. Type the names, a group or email addresses, and set them to Can chat.
4. Keep the Handbook folder selected, so the folder is shared with them too. People only get answers from files they can open.
5. Select Add.

Agent 2 · About 15 minutes once your documents are ready

Product and Service Answers

What it does: answers your staff’s questions about what you sell, such as specs, options, prices, lead times, warranties, returns and repairs, from your own product and service documents, with a cited source every time.

Step 1: Gather the documents

Create a SharePoint folder called Products and Services with:

• This year’s price list or rate sheet
• Product or service sheets: one per product line, with specs and options
• Warranty terms, return and repair policy
• Your top 20 customer questions with the answers you give (write them down once; the agent reuses them forever)

Step 2: Create the agent

1. New agent › Skip to configure.
2. Name: Product Answers.
3. Description: “Answers questions about our products, services, prices, warranties and returns from our own documents.”

Step 3: Paste the instructions

The instructions, including two rules for pricing:

Step 4: Add knowledge and starter prompts

• Knowledge: the Products and Services folder, added the same way. Turn on Only use specified sources and leave Search all websites off.
• Starter prompts:
  • “What can you do?”
  • “What’s the warranty on [your most popular product]?”
  • “Recommend an option for a customer who needs [common need].”
  • “Compare [product A] and [product B] in a table.”

Test it the same way as the handbook agent, then create and share it.