Such a disappointment

Question

One of my team members recently left, and with a critical meeting coming up next week, I had to step into the role quickly. I thought MS Copilot could assist with updating Excel and PowerPoint, but it turned out to be a mistake.

I asked Copilot to replace all instances of "2024" with "2025," but it replied that it couldn’t perform the task. Next, I requested it to analyze a pivot table to identify which rows were subtotals and apply the same formula to other columns in the sheet. Instead, it suggested irrelevant adjustments to unrelated columns.

I expected these tasks to be straightforward for MS software, but Copilot struggled with them. Honestly, it feels less efficient than a simple "Ctrl+F" and "Replace All."

kelly_edinger · Answer

We've been using Copilot and training orgs on Copilot for the better part of the year - it's very counterintuitive when trying to figure out what Copilot can and can't do. For Excel, it can only analyze the tables, not the data once composed as a pivot table. You may want to check out the Copilot Lab (make sure you're logged in with your work account as it shows more options). https://copilot.cloud.microsoft/ It may help you from ripping out your hair as you get used to it. I hope this helps.

notmything · Answer

What's so complex or specific about replacing 2024 with 2025? A 6-year-old kid can definitely do that, and Copilot cannot. Chat GPT is smarter than the average college student, while Copilot cannot do things that a 6-year-old can do.

jmott60 · Answer

I'm here to commiserate. I'm trying to analyse survey results in an Excel spreadsheet. I cannot get a response from CoPilot on any of the text (try again later!) so I'm cutting and pasting text into a Word document and trying to run in there. CoPilot seems to analyse no more than 3 pages at a time; the document of survey responses is 84 pages.

Using "Find" on search terms, and writing down the number of instances is getting me farther along on the top ten issues. SMH

micheleit · Answer

It seems a bit hit and miss in my experience.&nbsp; Really finding it hard to promote due to the non consistent performance and accuracy of returns and using Excel/Outlook/Powerpoint benefits for desktop apps seems more issue than it's worth atm.&nbsp; It also seems to have issues now with analyzing pictures and doesn't seem to recognize pic files (upon further investigation it doesnt seem to support them, but am sure it did at one stage).&nbsp; AND another issue is besides these forums there doesn't seem to be one place of truth about what is going on with Copilot which feels a little like being left in the lurch with it.&nbsp; I understand the sentiment of this poster.

hellobenteoh · Answer

As you've found, right now, Copilot can't do it. I'd recommend getting to know the basics of what it can do with the recommended prompts and work from there.

But just some thoughts from my experience:

In Excel:

Outside of formatting, Copilot won't updated existing data, but you can create new columns etc based on formulas. Honestly, I think this if for the best. When you have exact data, I wouldn't necessarily want a LLM generating content.
I don't think it does a great job at analysing existing pivot tables. You'd need to go back to the original data.
Out of all the M365 products, I've found that you need to be a lot more specific with Excel to get the result. I usually need to iterate on what I've done a couple of times to be clearer with what I want.

In PowerPoint

Again, not currently great with editing content on a slide. Hopefully the new changes announced at Inspire will address this.
It's been a bit hit and miss trying to work outside of the set examples provided in the prompt ideas and standard

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