Forum Discussion
The Employee Self-Service agent - how to find it
I see that Microsoft has put a lot of efforts to marketing the Copilot Employee Self-Service Agent but it seems it is not available for every tenant.
I have already checked on several small and mid ones (5-2k users) and cannot find it in templates.
As I understand from what I already red and saw, this is a template that should be available to you when you start building agents. Unfortunately when I enter Copilot Studio and enter in the search ESS (abbreviation from Employee Self-Service) I got only those two agents marked red filtered (see screenshot below).
When I installed IT Helpdesk agent, I do not see topics related to HRSD in ServiceNow which I need.
I found the Employee-Self-Service-Agent-Developer-Kit that contains same examples of the ServiceNow HRSD topics, but when I copy the YAML code of those topics to my agent I got some references to topics that I do not exists in my agents.
Anyone has struggled with the same? Or maybe you have access to the Employee Self-Service agent and can share the basic solution/topics with me?
Michal
2 Replies
Thank you AurelienAtibard for the answer.
I reached out to Microsoft and was able to get access to the agent through Microsoft Marketplace.If you search for "Employee Self Service Agent", you can find the "Employee Self-Service HR Agent" (preview). I was also granted access to the parent agent, which is not discoverable through search. To be honest, I don't fully understand the reasoning behind this, especially since that agent is not marked as a preview and available in PPAC.
Another way to find and install both agents is through the Power Platform Admin Center by navigating to Manage → Dynamics 365 Apps, and then locating and installing the agent from there (see screenshot below). Once installed in the target environment, the agents appear under the "Install a managed agent" section, but they are also listed alongside other agents.
Nevertheless, after trying it out, I'm still a bit confused.
You cannot open the HR Agent in Copilot Studio unless you use the preview URL (copilotstudio.preview.microsoft.com). As shown in the screenshots, there are also no options to use tools or configure connections in the agent's settings.
While reviewing the documentation, I came across the "Install ServiceNow HRSD extension pack" section. If I understand it correctly, I need to contact Microsoft and have them enable this capability for my tenant before I can use it. Is that correct?
So far, I have built a separate agent that uses tools and a ServiceNow connection, but it seems Microsoft has taken a much more advanced approach than my initial implementation.
Has anyone successfully deployed this agent with ServiceNow HRSD integration? I'd appreciate hearing about your experience and any lessons learned.
You are not doing anything wrong. The Employee Self-Service agent is simply not available to all tenants yet. Access is rolling out in waves, starting with managed customers and expanding to all customers over time. If you want access sooner, you need to reach out to your Microsoft account team. Small and mid-sized tenants without a dedicated account team just have to wait, which explains what you are seeing.
Also worth knowing: when the template does appear, you find it under Create then Managed Agents in Copilot Studio, not through a keyword search. The IT Helpdesk agent you installed is a completely separate template, which is why the ServiceNow HRSD topics are not there.
As for the GitHub Developer Kit, the YAML topics will keep breaking in isolation because they depend on shared variables, helper topics, flows, and connectors that only exist once the full ESS solution is properly installed. Copying topics into a blank agent is not enough.
The realistic options right now are to wait for broad rollout, or if this is for an active customer project, escalate through your Microsoft partner channel to request early access.
Full details here: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/copilot/employee-self-service/overview
