ai

AI in Business: Starting Your Automation Journey [A Preface]

priyeshwagh777 AI Thought Leadership, microsoft copilot , , ,

So in 2026 as I write this, AI is intrusive to the point that everyone in Management want it because it is believe to work 10x and reduce costs or because everyone is implementing so must we.

And the predicament doesn’t stop there – it continues expand to a point where plans are chalked out to run a department entirely. And organizers scramble to solve the problem directly by introducing AI as a form of “automation” rather than “augmentation”. I pondered on this a lot and this is what I think of it as it stands today.

Although most organizations are way ahead with working AI solutions already and are monitoring for production performance and tuning. But this blog is focussed on someone who’s just arrived to AI conversations and have burnt their fingers in some POCs maybe. Here are my two cents –

Foundation of AI for Business Applications

Here’s how you start – and it’s not building your first agent directly. But are the systems hygienic for your first AI agent to not struggle? Here’s what I mean by that –

  1. Clean your data – Make sure missing Sales or Operations data isn’t cluttering your system, giving unclean and unreliable reporting. Does management completely trust the reports you run today? Get the data right.
  2. Connect your systems – Integrate systems together for not everything – but enough to make sure you don’t duplicate, miss data or rely on manual labor prone to making mistakes. If integrated, make sure integrations work well.

Now extrapolate this at the Org level and you already are starting on a high-trust metadata and data at your org for any AI agents to make sense on.

How to introduce it?

Now that data is clean and systems are connected –

  1. Start small – introduce AI in micro-tasks of your workflows. Use it to generate what your team does obviously. The routine, mundane updates. Repeating tasks which can draw patterns.
  2. With those patterns – form the knowledge base of the AI. Improve AI to feed off of the knowledge base itself. It could be a structured prompt engine or a library that the model has to traverse, process the documents and make sense.
  3. Don’t use it for decision making – use it yourself so you can make a decision – just quicker.

Why do we feel it is not what it is meant to be?

I started off by thinking in a straight line –

  1. I want to get to point B from point A – so, let me implement it and give it to the tech team to do it with some instructions.
  2. Well, it does work – most times. But I’m still not happy with it. And here is the reason –
    1. No matter how perfect the answer is.
    2. Your judgement in that moment will override always — a confirmation bias or a change in situation suitable at that point in time will make more sense.
    3. You tend to take your decision overriding what AI has to offer for you (or rather recommend).
  3. And you dismiss it saying – “It doesn’t work”.

Well, it does work – but it’s giving you an opinion so you could extend yours. It’s not meant to give you your answer, yet. And this is true for most cases if not all.

It’ll be interesting to see how this blog either ages like milk or like wine in coming years. 😊

With this, I kick-start my AI Thought Leadership as a new section and running commentary as I work to get our customers and partners ready and thriving on AI in coming years.

Hope this was helpful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

  1. Select the item based on a key value using Filter Array in Power Automate
  2. Select values from an array using Select action in a Power Automate Flow
  3. Blocking Attachment Extensions in Dynamics 365 CRM
  4. Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment
  5. Showing Sandbox or Non Production Apps in Power App mobile app
  6. Create a Power Apps Per User Plan Trial | Dataverse environment
  7. Install On-Premise Gateway from Power Automate or Power Apps | Power Platform
  8. Co-presence in Power Automate | Multiple users working on a Flow
  9. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  10. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  11. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  12. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  13. Parsing Outputs of a List Rows action using Parse JSON in a Flow | Common Data Service (CE) connector
  14. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  15. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  16. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you

Create your first custom Copilot for Customer Service Hub – Part 2 | Authentication

priyeshwagh777 microsoft copilot , , , , , , ,

Now, you must have created your own Copilot to be deployed for the Customer Service Hub. If not, here’s the link to Part 1 of this blog – Create your first custom Copilot for Customer Service Hub – Part 1

Configure User Authentication with Microsoft Entra ID

Here’s how you can configure the User Authentication with Microsoft’s Entra ID for your Copilot to be authenticated with –

  1. Go to the Azure Portal [https://portal.azure.com/], then given the appropriate permissions your might have, you should be able to create an App Registration

  2. Now, create on New Registration –

  3. Now, give it a suitable name so that you can identify that the purpose of this App Registration is for Copilot. Select multi-tenant, leave Redirect URI blank and click on Register.

  4. Once ready, go to Authentication and then click to add Platform.


  5. In the platform selection, click on Web.

  6. Now, enter the URIs – First, enter the first URI, make sure to select Access tokens and ID tokens in Implicit grant and hybrid flows section and then click Configure.

    https://token.botframework.com/.auth/web/redirect
    https://europe.token.botframework.com/.auth/web/redirect


  7. Then, go ahead and add the Second URI from the main screen itself. Then, click Save and refresh the page once.

  8. Now that both the URIs are added, click on the configuration link to consider both the links for configuration.

  9. Now, you’ll be taken to this pane where you can click

  10. Now, both the URIs will appear here.

  11. Next, generate Client ID and Client Secret as you’ll need these details too –


Set Copilot Authentication to use Custom Authentication

Going back to the Copilot itself, set the Authentication you just created in the Azure Portal –

  1. Go to Settings on the Copilot to use the Custom Authentication.

  2. Go to Security section and then select Authentication.

  3. Select Authenticate manually and then enter the details as shown below. Enter the Client ID and Secret which you must’ve saved before.



  4. Next, come back to Copilot Settings and in Security, go to Settings and then look for Web channel security.

  5. Once you open it, you’ll find that the Secured Access is disabled. Go ahead and enable it.
    It takes up to 2 hours for it to take effect. Till then, old settings apply.

  6. Finally, in Channels, select Customer Service Hub so that you can connect to the Customer Service Hub.

  7. On the right hand side pane which opens up, you’ll see that this is not connected. Click the Connect button.


  8. It connects to Customer Service Omnichannel in a few moments.


Part 1: Create your first custom Copilot for Customer Service Hub – Part 1

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

  1. Select the item based on a key value using Filter Array in Power Automate
  2. Select values from an array using Select action in a Power Automate Flow
  3. Blocking Attachment Extensions in Dynamics 365 CRM
  4. Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment
  5. Showing Sandbox or Non Production Apps in Power App mobile app
  6. Create a Power Apps Per User Plan Trial | Dataverse environment
  7. Install On-Premise Gateway from Power Automate or Power Apps | Power Platform
  8. Co-presence in Power Automate | Multiple users working on a Flow
  9. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  10. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  11. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  12. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  13. Parsing Outputs of a List Rows action using Parse JSON in a Flow | Common Data Service (CE) connector
  14. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  15. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  16. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you!

Create your first custom Copilot for Customer Service Hub – Part 1 | Create Copilot

priyeshwagh777 Dynamics 365 CE, microsoft copilot , , , , , ,

Now, if you already have Copilot Studio in your Organization or have created a trail [Start your Copilot Studio Trial], you might be looking to build your first Copilot. Here’s how you can do it –

In this example, I’m creating a Copilot to help new Customer Service Reps at the organization to search and seek help about the organization itself quicker.

Create your Copilot

Here’s how you can start building your first custom Copilot –

  1. In your Copilot Studio environment, you must be seeing this New Copilot button in Copilot section. Click that.

  2. Here’s you need to start describing the Copilot you are looking to create. This is optional but recommended to do so as first step. It’ll ask you some questions on the context of the Copilot which you are looking to create.

  3. After it gathers some information from you, it’ll summarize what the Copilot is aimed to do.
    Now, once done you can click Skip to Configure to go to the next step.

  4. Further, you can name the Copilot and then start adding Knowledge by adding sources where the Copilot will source information from.

  5. Some of the most common ways for the Copilot to source knowledge from is from website and SharePoint data itself.

  6. In this example, I’m sourcing some information about whitepapers from thecompany’s website itself.

  7. Now, once this is ready, I’ll further proceed to Create the Copilot itself once relevant Knowledge links have been added as required. Once done, click Create.

  8. Now, once the Copilot is created – it’s ready to be configured further or even ready to be Published if nothing else is to be added at this point.
    You can scroll down in the details section and find that the Copilot is ready to be Published.
    Note that based on the Copilot settings for Channel, it’s only available to Teams at first – but you need to configure for other channels – like Customer Service Hub [in this case]


  9. Now that this is published. –

  10. Your Copilot is now ready!

In the next blog, we’ll connect this Custom Copilot to Customer Service Hub – Create your first custom Copilot for Customer Service Hub – Part 1 | Create Copilot

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

  1. Select the item based on a key value using Filter Array in Power Automate
  2. Select values from an array using Select action in a Power Automate Flow
  3. Blocking Attachment Extensions in Dynamics 365 CRM
  4. Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment
  5. Showing Sandbox or Non Production Apps in Power App mobile app
  6. Create a Power Apps Per User Plan Trial | Dataverse environment
  7. Install On-Premise Gateway from Power Automate or Power Apps | Power Platform
  8. Co-presence in Power Automate | Multiple users working on a Flow
  9. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  10. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  11. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  12. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  13. Parsing Outputs of a List Rows action using Parse JSON in a Flow | Common Data Service (CE) connector
  14. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  15. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  16. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you!

Start your Copilot Studio Trial

priyeshwagh777 microsoft copilot , , , , , , ,

Here’s how you can try out Copilot Studio for free first. Along with that, here’s the Copilot Studio Pricing – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/microsoft-copilot-studio#Pricing

Copilot Studio Trial

Here’s how you can start your own Copilot Studio Trial.

  1. Navigate to the Copilot Studio homepage – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/microsoft-copilot-studio
    You’ll see this Homepage and you can see a button to Try free

  2. Then, just like any other Sign up process for Microsoft products, you can start by the entering the Email of the org which you want to provision this on.

  3. Once you click Next, you’ll be asked to Sign In once everything looks good to be provisioned.

  4. Once you Sign In, you’ll be asked for Region and Phone.

  5. Once you click on Get Started, you’ll be asked for final confirmation and then it’ll start provisioning.

  6. Once you click on Get Started, it’ll take a few minutes to get provisioned.
    Then, you’ll finally see Copilot Studio show up. Select your region and Get Started.

  7. Finally, switch to the right environment which you wish to work on.
    It’ll start with a Welcome Wizard and you are ready to go and start your Copilot Journey!


    And this is where you can start exploring within the Copilot Studio!

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

  1. Select the item based on a key value using Filter Array in Power Automate
  2. Select values from an array using Select action in a Power Automate Flow
  3. Blocking Attachment Extensions in Dynamics 365 CRM
  4. Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment
  5. Showing Sandbox or Non Production Apps in Power App mobile app
  6. Create a Power Apps Per User Plan Trial | Dataverse environment
  7. Install On-Premise Gateway from Power Automate or Power Apps | Power Platform
  8. Co-presence in Power Automate | Multiple users working on a Flow
  9. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  10. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  11. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  12. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  13. Parsing Outputs of a List Rows action using Parse JSON in a Flow | Common Data Service (CE) connector
  14. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  15. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  16. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you!

Project Status Update Reports on Projects using Copilot in Project Operations

priyeshwagh777 Project Operations , , , , , , ,

Now that you must have enabled Copilot for Project Operations [If not, you can refer this post to learn how you can enable Copilot for Project Operations – Enable Copilot for Project Operations]

Note: Please note that this is a Preview feature at the time of writing this post and hence, not recommended for Production usage.

Enable Copilot For Project Operations

First, you need to ensure that Copilot is enabled for your Project Operations environment – Enable Copilot for Project Operations

Once this is enabled, you’ll be able to see Copilot on the ribbon button on the Project. Let’s look at the same in the below section.

Project Status Update Report

Now that you have Copilot enabled for Project Operations, you can now create Task Plans for a Project in Project Operations –

  1. When you navigate to a Project, you’ll see Copilot appear on the Ribbon given that you have enabled it for your Project Operations instance.

  2. Once you select Status Report, it’ll give you option to generate either an Internal or an External Report. Then it runs in the background and takes a few minutes till Copilot will gather all the information for you and generate a report.




  3. External Report generated is as below –



  4. Internal Report generated is as below –



Here’s Microsoft’s Full Documentation on how Project Status Update Reports are generated in Project Operations’ Copilot (Preview) – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/release-plan/2023wave1/finance-operations/dynamics365-project-operations/generate-project-status-reports-using-project-manager-copilot?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

  1. Select the item based on a key value using Filter Array in Power Automate
  2. Select values from an array using Select action in a Power Automate Flow
  3. Blocking Attachment Extensions in Dynamics 365 CRM
  4. Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment
  5. Showing Sandbox or Non Production Apps in Power App mobile app
  6. Create a Power Apps Per User Plan Trial | Dataverse environment
  7. Install On-Premise Gateway from Power Automate or Power Apps | Power Platform
  8. Co-presence in Power Automate | Multiple users working on a Flow
  9. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  10. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  11. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  12. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  13. Parsing Outputs of a List Rows action using Parse JSON in a Flow | Common Data Service (CE) connector
  14. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  15. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  16. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you!

Risk Assessments on Projects using Copilot in Project Operations

priyeshwagh777 Project Operations , , , , , ,

Now that you must have enabled Copilot for Project Operations [If not, you can refer this post to learn how you can enable Copilot for Project Operations – Enable Copilot for Project Operations]

Note: Please note that this is a Preview feature at the time of writing this post and hence, not recommended for Production usage.

Enable Copilot For Project Operations

First, you need to ensure that Copilot is enabled for your Project Operations environment – Enable Copilot for Project Operations

Once this is enabled, you’ll be able to see Copilot on the ribbon button on the Project. Let’s look at the same in the below section.

Risk Assessment

Now that you have Copilot enabled for Project Operations, you can now create Task Plans for a Project in Project Operations –

  1. When you navigate to a Project, you’ll see Copilot appear on the Ribbon given that you have enabled it for your Project Operations instance.

  2. Once you select Risk Assessment, it runs in the background and takes a few minutes till Copilot will populate the Risks for you.



  3. Once this is generated in a few moments, it appears in the Risks tab on the Project itself.


  4. Additionally, you are free to use this in reporting as well

Here’s Microsoft’s Full Documentation on how Risk Assessments work in Project Operations’ Copilot (Preview) – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/release-plan/2023wave1/finance-operations/dynamics365-project-operations/assess-issues-risks-project-using-project-manager-copilot?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

  1. Select the item based on a key value using Filter Array in Power Automate
  2. Select values from an array using Select action in a Power Automate Flow
  3. Blocking Attachment Extensions in Dynamics 365 CRM
  4. Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment
  5. Showing Sandbox or Non Production Apps in Power App mobile app
  6. Create a Power Apps Per User Plan Trial | Dataverse environment
  7. Install On-Premise Gateway from Power Automate or Power Apps | Power Platform
  8. Co-presence in Power Automate | Multiple users working on a Flow
  9. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  10. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  11. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  12. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  13. Parsing Outputs of a List Rows action using Parse JSON in a Flow | Common Data Service (CE) connector
  14. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  15. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  16. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you!

Create Project Plan using Copilot in Project Operations

priyeshwagh777 Project Operations , , , , , ,

Now that you must have enabled Copilot for Project Operations [If not, you can refer this post to learn how you can enable Copilot for Project Operations – Enable Copilot for Project Operations]

Note: Please note that this is a Preview feature at the time of writing this post and hence, not recommended for Production usage.

Enable Copilot For Project Operations

First, you need to ensure that Copilot is enabled for your Project Operations environment – Enable Copilot for Project Operations

Once this is enabled, you’ll be able to see Copilot on the ribbon button on the Project. Let’s look at the same in the below section.

Task Plan

Now that you have Copilot enabled for Project Operations, you can now create Task Plans for a Project in Project Operations –

  1. Before you proceed to trying to create a Task Plan, the Copilot in Project Operations will look for data on the Project record such as the Description of the Project, Start Dates, End Dates etc as reference point in order to understand what type of Tasks are to be created.


    The sample Description I put for this Project is – “This project will be a 3-month implementation for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations with integration to F&O system. This project will involve developers to design, architect, develop code, test and deploy the same.“

  2. Once Project details are in place and the Project doesn’t have a Project Plan yet. It should look something like this and having Copilot button on the ribbon visible.

  3. If you expand the menu, you’ll see that it has an option called as Task Plan. Click on it and it’ll begin processing operations and show loading screen while it processes in the background.


    And the loading screen will keep showing messages like Computing, Collecting, analysing etc.

  4. In a few moments, it’ll process successfully and you’ll see Tasks being generated in the Tasks pane on the Project. Note that it’ll only segment into tasks and sub-tasks based on the Description and Start/End Dates – it won’t assign anyone or estimate any hours.

Here’s Microsoft Documentation on how the Task Plan feature works. Please note that this in Preview at the time of writing this post – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/release-plan/2023wave1/finance-operations/dynamics365-project-operations/generate-project-plans-using-project-manager-copilot?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this post was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

  1. Select the item based on a key value using Filter Array in Power Automate
  2. Select values from an array using Select action in a Power Automate Flow
  3. Blocking Attachment Extensions in Dynamics 365 CRM
  4. Upgrade Dataverse for Teams Environment to Dataverse Environment
  5. Showing Sandbox or Non Production Apps in Power App mobile app
  6. Create a Power Apps Per User Plan Trial | Dataverse environment
  7. Install On-Premise Gateway from Power Automate or Power Apps | Power Platform
  8. Co-presence in Power Automate | Multiple users working on a Flow
  9. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  10. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  11. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  12. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  13. Parsing Outputs of a List Rows action using Parse JSON in a Flow | Common Data Service (CE) connector
  14. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  15. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  16. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you!