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.

Based on: the My Company Policy agent(MIT license), which ships with sample policies, a test plan and three ways to install it. We use its “build from scratch in Agent Builder” route and trim it for a company of 5 to 50 people.

Step 1: Gather the documents

Create a SharePoint folder called Handbook (or use an existing policies library) and 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 cites what it can see, so clear names mean clear citations. Remove old versions, and check that the folder isn’t open to 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

This is a shortened version of the original instructions. The full version is about 4,900 characters, well under the 8,000 limit, and worth reading. Replace [Company] with your name:

Two lines in the original do most of the work: “Answers must be grounded exclusively in these documents”stops the agent from filling gaps with generic internet policy, and “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: add the Handbook folder. Nothing else: an agent pointed at your whole SharePoint will find drafts.
• Starter prompts, adapted from the original:
  • “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?”

Step 5: Test with questions you know the answers to

The original comes with a test plan: questions with known answers, checked for three things. Borrow the idea. Write 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.

Then select Create and share it with your team.

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.

Based on: the Product Support agent in the PnP community samples, written by Garry Trinder. The original is published for developers to deploy from code, but it uses nothing except a folder of documents, so it rebuilds in Agent Builder without code. Its instructions are just five sentences, which shows how little you need when the documents are good.

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 original, with Contoso Electronics swapped for your business and two rules added for pricing:

Step 4: Add knowledge and starter prompts

• Knowledge: the Products and Services folder.
• Starter prompts, adapted from the original sample:
  • “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.