What’s new and improved with Microsoft Graph connectors
Published Oct 08 2024 04:00 PM 3,729 Views
Microsoft

We are thrilled to announce new Microsoft Graph connector features and enhancements to support Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility. Microsoft Graph connectors allow you to bring external content into Microsoft Graph, making it accessible alongside your Microsoft 365 data (e.g., Word documents, SharePoint content, PowerPoint decks, Teams chats, and more) across various Microsoft 365 experiences, including Microsoft 365 Copilot. 

 

The updates detailed below are meant to provide users with more flexibility, control, and efficiency in managing their data. Imagine having more of your valuable enterprise systems accessible at your fingertips—this is the power of Microsoft Graph connectors in enhancing knowledge available to Microsoft 365 Copilot and your Copilot agents. 

 

Customize Microsoft 365 Copilot with Copilot agents 

Agents are AI assistants designed to automate and execute business processes, working with or for humans. They range in capability from simple, prompt-and-response agents; to agents that replace repetitive tasks; to more advanced, fully autonomous agents. With Copilot agents, you can do this by bringing the power of agents right into the flow of your work.  

 

Use Microsoft Graph connectors to index external data into Microsoft Graph to ground Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot agents in specific, relevant knowledge. Read more about our recent Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 announcement. 

 

New Microsoft Graph connectors  

We heard your feedback and are excited to offer brand new Graph connectors for Confluence on-premises and SharePoint Server. You can now index Confluence pages, blogs, and wikis and SharePoint documents and webpages from your data center or server instance. These additions provide businesses with more options to connect existing data sources to Microsoft 365, enhancing overall productivity and collaboration. Learn more in our documentation. 
 
We’re also excited to announce the availability of Graph connectors to more data sources, in preview. To sign up for the preview of these new Graph connectors and other new features, please complete this Form. If a Graph connector for your preferred data sources is not yet available, please share your feedback and request development through this Form. 

 

Quick setup experience for Graph connectors 

We’re announcing the release of a new quick setup experience for some Microsoft Graph connectors that reduces setup time from hours to minutes. This new experience is available for ServiceNow Knowledge, Confluence Cloud, Confluence On-premises, and Jira Cloud. Learn more in our documentation. 

 

Graph connectors SDK support for improved indexing in Microsoft 365 Copilot  

We made improvements to the Graph connectors SDK to allow you to make the most of Microsoft 365 Copilot capabilities for improved indexing when building custom Graph connectors. With this update, if a connection has the “Title” and “Url” as labels and any schema property in the connection is marked as “IsContent”, the item content will be vectorized in the index. 

 

Please note: the indexed item content will not be vectorized in case your item content does not have chunks of text in the body to vectorize or if the item only consists of sparse metadata fields. Learn more in our documentation 

 

Salesforce Data Source Filter 

We’re introducing a new feature for the Microsoft Graph connector for Salesforce by the end of September 2024. Businesses will be able to exclude items that do not need to be indexed, providing greater control over data that is integrated into their Microsoft 365 tenant. This feature helps ensure that only relevant information is included, reducing clutter and improving overall efficiency. Learn more in our documentation. 

 

Options to restrict index data from Salesforce using time-based or query-based filtersOptions to restrict index data from Salesforce using time-based or query-based filters

Licensing Update 

We recently shared an announcement that Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscriptions now receive a 50 million item index per tenant at no extra cost for data ingested via Microsoft Graph connectors. This update ensures that businesses can ingest more data to be used across Microsoft 365 experiences, without worrying about additional costs. Learn more from our recent blog post.  
 

Quota update notification in Microsoft 365 Admin center – Search & Intelligence portalQuota update notification in Microsoft 365 Admin center – Search & Intelligence portal

Scenario Improvements in Microsoft 365 Copilot 

We have made several improvements to enhance the capabilities with Graph connectors in Microsoft 365 Copilot: 

  1. Admins can now enhance Graph connector intent detection by adding a rich Connector description. Learn more in our documentation 
  2. Users can now use natural language prompts with the intent to filter data based on common properties (semantic labels) in Graph connectors. 
    1. Example: Users can look for ServiceNow tickets with “Show me the ticket created by John yesterday about webpage not working”. 
  3. Users can now leverage the connection name in Copilot prompts to improve intent detection. 
    1. Example: In an organization with a repository called “InsightVault”, users can find information by using the following prompt in Copilot: “Show me past research on customer behaviour from InsightVault” 

 

Entra Auth Support for CSV (SharePoint) & Azure DevOps (ADO) Connectors 

We are migrating the OAuth Server for the ADO WorkItem Connector, ADO Wiki Connector, and CSV (SharePoint) connector to use Microsoft Entra OAuth. While this migration requires no action on your part, we recommend upgrading the OAuth provider to Microsoft Entra. 

 

Currently, Azure DevOps uses OAuth2 authorization code and ADO App registration, while CSV (SharePoint) uses OAuth2 Client Credentials and SharePoint App registration. Learn more in our documentation for ADO WorkItem connector, ADO Wiki connector, and CSV connector 

 

Enhancing observability and simplifying troubleshooting with ‘Index browser’ 

Admins can now validate whether content has been indexed and review its associated properties and permissions, including users access to specific content with ‘Index browser’. This feature can be accessed by clicking on individual connection in Search & Intelligence portal within the Microsoft 365 Admin center. This can be used while testing, validating and troubleshooting search issues. 

 

If users report difficulties accessing items, this tool helps ensure that content is indexed correctly and includes the relevant data. Learn more in our documentation for Index browser. 

 Index browser experience in the Microsoft 365 Admin center – Search & Intelligence portal (data sources tab)Index browser experience in the Microsoft 365 Admin center – Search & Intelligence portal (data sources tab)
Availability across Microsoft 365 experiences 

Content from Graph connectors is now available in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. This integration ensures that users can access and manage their data across more Microsoft 365 applications. 
 

Graph connector content is available within Microsoft 365 Copilot in Microsoft WordGraph connector content is available within Microsoft 365 Copilot in Microsoft Word

 

Get started today 

We are excited for you to continue using Microsoft Graph connectors as a valuable part of your AI strategy and the next wave of Copilot innovation. You can experience many of these new capabilities today through the documentation links above, and preview others in the coming weeks. 

 

We remain committed to providing you with the tools and technologies that drive success. Stay tuned for more updates and advancements in the coming months. Thank you for being a valued part of our community! 

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‎Oct 07 2024 12:31 PM
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