Overview
A practical course in Microsoft 365 Copilot across Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Attendees use a connected workplace scenario, choose appropriate available models, delegate multi-step work through Copilot Cowork, and build and test a simple Agent Builder agent.
What you’ll need
- Laptop with reliable internet; headphones and microphone and webcam
- Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome; supported Microsoft 365 desktop apps
- Work account with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence; Cowork, relevant models and Agent Builder enabled, with permissions and required usage arrangements confirmed
- Supplied training files and approved SharePoint or OneDrive knowledge sources
- Meeting transcription enabled, or a supplied training transcript
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, attendees will be able to:
- Distinguish Copilot Chat, in-app Copilot, Copilot Cowork and custom agents
- Summarise communication, draft replies and identify meeting decisions and actions in Outlook and Teams
- Create and refine documents and presentations from source material in Word and PowerPoint
- Explore Excel data, generate or explain formulas and create charts, checking results independently
- Reference organisational information, verify sources and respect access permissions
- Compare available models or modes and justify automatic selection or an explicit choice
- Brief Cowork for a bounded multi-step task, review its work and refine the result
- Build an Agent Builder agent with clear instructions, approved sources and useful starter prompts
- Test and improve an agent, recognise limitations and plan responsible use and sharing
Course topics
Microsoft 365 Copilot Foundations
- Prompting refresher: task, context, sources, constraints and format; Copilot Chat versus in-app Copilot
- Find and reference SharePoint and OneDrive information; permissions, sensitive data and source checking
- Practical: answer a project question and verify its supporting evidence
Copilot in Outlook and Teams
- Summarise email threads, identify decisions and outstanding actions; draft replies and project updates for an audience and tone
- Catch up on conversations, prepare meetings and extract decisions, owners and actions from meetings or transcripts; policy and transcript-quality limits
- Practical: draft a reply and produce a meeting summary/action list; verify facts, commitments, owners and deadlines
Copilot in Word
- Draft from outlines or approved sources; summarise, restructure and rewrite for different audiences
- Practical: create a briefing and executive summary, checking referenced documents and generated text
Copilot in Excel
- Prepare structured data; explore trends, generate or explain formulas, and create appropriate charts using available capabilities
- Practical: analyse sample data and identify a trend; independently check calculations, totals and conclusions
PowerPoint and Cross-App Workflows
- Create a presentation from suitable source material; refine structure, wording and visuals for its audience
- Practical: build and refine slides from the Word briefing and Excel findings; check source accuracy and connect tasks into a repeatable workflow
Choosing the Right AI Model
- Applications, models, reasoning modes and agents; where selection is available and which choices the organisation enables
- Practical: compare two available models or modes for speed, depth and quality; justify Auto or an explicit selection
Copilot Cowork: Delegating Multi-Step Work
- Brief an outcome with inputs, boundaries, deliverables and review checkpoints; review the plan, monitor progress and refine the brief
- Practical: prepare a briefing and draft follow-up materials from project information; check outputs and proposed actions before communication or consequential changes
Designing, Building and Testing an Agent
- Select a repeatable use case, not just a saved prompt or one-off Cowork task; define users, purpose, inputs, sources, outputs and missing-information behaviour
- Examples: project knowledge, onboarding or house-style assistants; Agent Builder versus advanced Copilot Studio
- Practical: build an Agent Builder agent with clear instructions, approved sources and starter prompts; test expected questions, missing information and out-of-scope requests
- Check answer quality and supporting sources; refine instructions. Instructions do not replace access controls, and sharing does not grant source-file access
Applied Workshop, Responsible Sharing and Next Steps
- Use the agent within a Microsoft 365 workflow; choose in-app Copilot, Cowork or an agent for each task
- Peer-review answers and uncertainty handling; review ownership, knowledge maintenance and sharing options
- Practical: produce an adoption plan with a use case, benefit, owner and checks; choose a next workflow or agent and identify when specialist/admin support is needed; questions and answers