Forum Discussion
Giving AI Agent access to move files between folders
Hi Community,
I have built a PDF to Excel reconcilliation AI Agent using Microsoft Copilot that reconciles supplier statements against payables data for our organisation. The agent works well. it reads PDF supplier statements and Excel reports from a SharePoint document library, performs the reconciliation, and produces a structured audit-ready report.
However, I am hitting a limitation at the final step. Once the reconciliation is complete, I would like the agent to automatically move the processed supplier statement PDF from its current folder to a subfolder called "reconcilled" within the same SharePoint document library.
My question is What is the recommended way to give a Copilot AI Agent the ability to move files between SharePoint folders?
Any guidance, documentation links, or examples from others who have implemented similar workflows would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
1 Reply
Your agent can't move files on its own. That's not a gap in your design, it's just how Copilot agents work. They handle the reasoning and orchestration, but for file system operations like moving a PDF between folders, they need to hand off to Power Automate.
The good news is this is a one-step addition to what you already have. At the end of your reconciliation topic in Copilot Studio, you add a Call an Action node that triggers a Power Automate flow. The SharePoint connector in Power Automate includes a native Move file action that works exactly like the "Move to" command in SharePoint libraries, and returns info about the new file after the move. You pass the file identifier from your agent into that flow, point the action at your "reconcilled" subfolder, and you're done.
Power Automate is deeply integrated with SharePoint, and moving files to different folders after they are processed is one of its top supported scenarios.
One thing worth knowing before you build: when you move a file via Power Automate, it does not alter any custom metadata including the original created and modified timestamps. For an audit-ready workflow like yours, that's exactly what you want.
Just make sure the "reconcilled" subfolder exists in SharePoint before the flow runs, or add a Create new folder step at the start of the flow with a "do nothing if exists" option to handle it automatically.
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