**Disclaimer**\
\
This tutorial has been shared as a preview to the complete [Building a Custom Agent in Copilot Studio](https://damobird365.teachable.com/p/damobird365-membership) course. Please make sure you sign up to the new community which includes both this course (launching in January) and a Power Automate Cloud Flow course due to be launched in June 2025. You'll also get access to the community forum and fortnightly calls with Damien where you can learn more about the Power Platform and even share your own builds and learning. \
\
You can check out his [YouTube DamoBird365 (15,000+ subscribers) here](https://www.youtube.com/c/DamoBird365?sub_confirmation=1)

Navigate to [https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com](https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com/environments/Default-16c901d1-9763-49b1-961c-6cd701f5d0f7/bots/f57625fa-c5b8-ef11-a72f-000d3ad4aa08/overview)

Here, we have the custom Agent that you will learn to build throughout the course. For now, we'll take a tour and explore how to navigate around Copilot Studio

Instructions 
You are a friendly, helpful, polite HR Agent that will use knowledge to answer questions about HR Policies and Procedures, as well as helping Employees request annual leave.  Do not answer questions unrelated to this topic.

You are a friendly, helpful, polite HR Agent that will use knowledge to answer questions about HR Policies and Procedures, as well as helping Employees request annual leave.  Do not answer questions unrelated to this topic.

The overview tab, will summarize key information that can also be configured elsewhere.  It has a **description** for the maker, user and Agent understanding as well as some important **instructions** to guide the agent on its capability and behaviour as well as a toggle for Generative **Orchestration**

Analytics
Check your agent's key performance info from the last 7 days.
Open Analytics
Total sessions
3
Engagement
67%
Satisfaction score
--

There are details about the **analytics**, **total sessions**, **engagement** and **satisfaction score** of our Agent. Useful for driving user adoption and iterating on the Agents success to deliver return on investment

**Knowledge**, which relates to the data that our Agent is grounded on. It can also include **general knowledge** based on what it was trained on via the web, you can disable this.

**Actions**, these are native to the Power Platform and relate to a connector, for instance, **SharePoint**. Orchestration must be enabled to allow the Agent to called these dynamically using Generative AI.

**Triggers**, which relate to Power Automate triggers and **Autonomous Agents**. Ultimately a Cloud Flow will be triggered, for instance via email, and call our Agent to take appropriate action.

**Topics**, which relate to either system or custom Topics. When Orchestration is off, these are called based on Topic Trigger Words, otherwise Generative AI will reason over the Topic Description.

And finally the **Published Status**, if and when an Agent was last Published

Published agent status
Published by DamoBird365 12/30/2024, 9:03 PM

Along the top navigation panel there are a series of tabs.

The **Knowledge** tab lists all of the grounded knowledge that the agent has access to.  This can be queried via a Generative Answers node in a default System Topic or a custom Topic with granular access to content

By clicking on **Add knowledge**, you can attach various data sources that are natively available to our agent including public websites, SharePoint, Dataverse, Upload Files or use Advanced capabilites such as Azure AI Search

Under the **Topics** section, you'll find all available Topics, both custom and system-defined. Keep in mind that the Trigger method varies based on whether Orchestration is enabled or disabled. You can easily view the last update timestamp for each Topic and toggle them on or off as needed. Topics play a crucial role in providing a structured and organized approach to conversations, ensuring clarity and relevance in your agent's interactions.

If you click on and select a Topic, for example **Conversation Start**

Trigger
On Conversation Start
Edit
Message
Text

Speech variation available.
Hello, I'm 
Bot.Name
string
​, a custom agent built by Damo. Just so you are aware, I sometimes use AI to answer your questions. If you provided a website during creation, try asking me about it! Next try giving me some more knowledge by setting up generative AI.
Message
Text

Add

Enter a message


Quick replies
Can I request annual leave?

How can I become a digital champion?

Do I have any approved annual leave?

Tell me about the salary grades?


You will be presented with the **Authoring Canvas** which enables you to configure the topic workflow, adding **nodes** for questions, messages or logic and capturing variables from an Agent conversation

You can add nodes to your Topic by clicking on the **+** and then choosing from the following options:

- **Send a message** to the user
- **Ask a question** to the user and capture the response as a variable
- **Use an adaptive card**, which is a platform-agnostic JSON payload for creating custom cards that capture a response from the user
- **Add a condition** to determine an outcome based on branching logic

Damobird365

This guide offers a comprehensive walkthrough of Copilot Studio, empowering users to build custom agents with advanced capabilities such as knowledge integration, variable management, and analytics tracking. By exploring features like conversation management, user authentication, and testing tools, users can optimize their agents for improved interaction and user satisfaction. Overall, this guide is essential for anyone looking to leverage Microsoft Copilot Studio effectively.

A Tour of Copilot Studio

Copilot Studio Walkthrough

Knowledge

Topics, Authoring Canvas and Nodes