Driving Adoption topics

Measuring Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption beyond license activation

NehaNellepalli — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 12:28:32 GMT

In adoption programs, I think the interesting measurement starts after users have access.

At DataToBiz, we have been looking at the difference between someone trying Copilot once and actually incorporating it into a recurring workflow.

For example, repeat usage around a specific task tells a very different story from initial activation.

How are teams measuring that second stage of adoption without relying only on license or usage counts?

A data platform is only useful when people stop working around it

Nandeesh — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:28:49 GMT

A data platform can be technically sound and still fail to change how people work.

One of the clearest signals is what happens immediately before a business review. If teams export data from an ERP, open several Excel files, reconcile numbers manually, and then build a presentation for leadership, the organization may have a reporting system.

It doesn't necessarily have data adoption.

A more sustainable pattern is to move the repetitive work into the data platform and make the resulting information accessible with tools people already use for analysis.

For one manufacturing environment, the starting point included Odoo ERP data across finance, inventory, procurement, and manufacturing, along with substantial spreadsheet-based reporting.

The Azure data platform introduced separate layers for:

Ingestion: Azure Data Factory and APIs

Storage: ADLS Gen2

Transformation: Azure Databricks and Spark

Analytics modeling: Synapse/SQL

Consumption: Power BI

The technical architecture mattered, but so did what happened at the end of the pipeline. Instead of asking operational teams to repeatedly extract and reconcile data, the implementation provided role-based Power BI dashboards for 60+ users.

That changes the adoption equation. People donot have to learn an entirely new data process just to answer a routine business question.

They can move from: Extract → reconcile → format → report

Toward: Open → filter → investigate → act

There is also an engineering benefit in this.

Once recurring reporting logic is moved into governed data pipelines and analytical models, improvements to the underlying data flow can benefit multiple reports instead of requiring the same manual correction in several spreadsheets.

For data teams, I think this raises an important question:

How do you measure data-platform adoption beyond the number of users with access?

Is it dashboard usage, reduction in spreadsheet reporting, fewer manual reconciliations, faster decision cycles, or something else?

Power BI and Fabric team ownership in extended engineering models

AnshulGrover7878 — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 08:54:04 GMT

When an internal BI team already owns Power BI and additional engineers support Fabric development, how do you divide responsibilities?

For example, should the extended team own data pipelines and notebooks while the internal team owns semantic models and reports, or is it cleaner to assign ownership by project? We have encountered this at Datatobiz when implementation work moves into ongoing development and support. Thoughts?

For teams rolling out “AI”.

ai_aksh — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 11:40:33 GMT

At what point do you stop measuring “usage” and start measuring whether the workflow actually changed?

We have been looking at things like repeat usage, manual steps removed, and whether users still fall back to their old process after the initial rollout.

License activation tells you very little on its own. Curious what signals others are using to spot genuine adoption.

I designed an OS-tan mascot for Microsoft PC Manager! (PC Manager-tan)

minjincraft — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:20:04 GMT

Hello! I’m a huge fan of Windows 11 and a daily user of Microsoft PC Manager.

Since the app is so incredibly light and useful, I thought it would be fun to give it a face. So, I designed an "OS-tan" style mascot character for it: "PC Manager-tan"!

I wanted to share my concept art and ideas with the community. Here are some of her design details:

[Design Inspiration & Colors]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Signature Colors: The green and blue color scheme is heavily inspired by the official Microsoft PC Manager logo.

Hair Details: She has a blue 'ahoge' (cowlick) and a blue heart hairpin to represent the distinct dots in the app's logo.

Outfit: A Full-Body Style energetic cleaning assistant wearing a cozy cable-knit sweater, a green plaid skirt, and round glasses.

Slogan: "We'll clean up your PC for you"

[Her Equipment & Skills]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Digital Broom (Boost): Her main tool. With one click, she aggressively sweeps away unnecessary RAM usage and temporary files.

Sandbox Claw Glove (Security): A mechanical claw she uses to safely catch malware and inspect system health.

AI Utility Bag: A handy bag filled with all the convenient AI tools she needs to assist the user.

I had a lot of fun making this, and I hope you guys like her! What do you think? It would be amazing if the MS dev team actually saw this! 😂

How we’re using Microsoft 365 to reduce merchant QBR prep from hours to minutes

yang_intellithing — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 22:43:31 GMT

Hi Champions,

I wanted to share a practical adoption pattern we have been working on for account teams that prepare recurring customer or merchant business reviews.

One workflow we kept seeing was quarterly business review prep: an account manager starts with a CSV or TSV export, then manually rebuilds similar scorecards, summaries, PowerPoint slides, and follow-up notes for many accounts. It is important work, but a lot of the prep is repetitive.

We built Merchant QBR AutoPilot as a Microsoft 365 agent to explore how much of that workflow can stay inside the tools business users already use.

The current workflow is:

- Start from a merchant performance export in CSV or TSV format, either from OneDrive or pasted directly in chat.

- Generate executive QBR scorecards for one merchant or multiple merchant accounts in a batch.

- Include payments-oriented metrics such as transaction volume, authorization rate, top decline reason, chargeback rate, interchange downgrade, and loyalty spend lift.

- Create a PowerPoint scorecard for each account.

- Organize the run in OneDrive with an index, per-account status, and an optional ZIP bundle.

- Draft a follow-up email that the user can review and send from Outlook.

The adoption lesson for us has been that Copilot and agents land best when the workflow is narrow, familiar, and already painful. “Prepare this quarter’s account reviews from the export I already have” is much easier for business users to understand than a broad AI promise.

I would be interested to hear how other Champions are approaching similar recurring review workflows. Are your teams using Microsoft 365 Copilot or agents for business-review prep, customer success workflows, sales/account planning, or operational reporting?

For anyone curious, the app is listed on Microsoft Marketplace here: Merchant QBR AutoPilot.

Customer Expansion Opportunity Blocked by Licensing Transition Policy

Dwhite — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:36:59 GMT

Where do we get assistance when Partner Support resources are Policy blocked:

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We have a 26-user Financial Services customer in CA currently annual licensed on Microsoft 365 E3.

The customer wishes to modernize and expand its Microsoft investment through:

Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption
Expanded security capabilities
Additional Purview workloads
SharePoint storage expansion (5TB)
Migration from competitor ShareFile to Microsoft 365

The resulting solution increases Microsoft's footprint, strengthens customer security posture, and displaces a competitive platform.

However, the customer's economics require transitioning from Microsoft 365 E3 to Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Current guidance received through Partner Support is that E3 to Business Premium represents a downgrade and therefore is not permitted.

Business Impact

The current position creates a conflict between policy enforcement and customer growth objectives.

Without flexibility:

Customer may delay adoption of Copilot.
ShareFile displacement opportunity is reduced.
Microsoft security expansion is reduced.
Customer perception of Microsoft licensing flexibility is negatively impacted.

With flexibility:

Customer remains on Microsoft platform.
Security posture improves.
Additional Microsoft workloads are adopted.
Competitive platform is displaced.
Annual Microsoft revenue increases materially.

Customer Profile

Industry: Financial Services
User Count: 26
Eligible for Business Premium user limits
Existing Microsoft customer
Strategic security and compliance requirements

Requested Guidance

We are requesting executive review of a licensing path that enables:

Transition from E3 to Business Premium.
Expansion into Copilot.
Expansion into security and compliance workloads.
Migration from ShareFile into SharePoint.

Our goal is not cost reduction but overall Microsoft platform expansion and improved customer outcomes.

Release Notes for adoption.microsoft.com

arinkomins — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 12:44:58 GMT

Hi all!

Just checking, but it doesn't look like adoption.microsoft.com's release notes (Release notes – Microsoft Adoption) has had any updates since the end of January -- which feels wrong. Is something misbehaving with that feed?

Excel Copilot now supports local files (Preview): what this means for everyday users

Anirudh07 — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 20:55:06 GMT

In the Microsoft 365 Current Channel (Preview), Excel Copilot Chat now supports local Excel files, not just workbooks stored in the cloud.

This is a meaningful usability improvement because many users, especially students and early-career professionals, still work primarily with datasets stored locally on their devices.

Why this matters for adoption:

Users can now interact with Copilot Chat while analysing local Excel files.
This reduces friction for offline work, assignments, and exploratory data analysis.
It makes Copilot more practical for everyday learning and productivity workflows.

For users learning data analysis, reporting, or business intelligence, this update lowers the barrier to using Copilot consistently rather than only in cloud-based scenarios.

I am exploring how these preview features can improve real-world adoption and learning experiences, particularly for students and early-career users who work with Excel daily.

Helping students adopt Microsoft 365 tools for learning & productivity

Anirudh07 — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 10:31:43 GMT

Hi everyone,
I’m a Microsoft 365 Champion and MSc Data Science student, and I’m currently helping fellow students get started with Microsoft tools such as:

• Power BI (data analytics & dashboards)

• Microsoft Learn learning paths

• Microsoft 365 productivity tools

I’m curious:

What are the biggest challenges you’ve seen when introducing Power BI or Microsoft Learn to students or early-career professionals?

I’d love to learn from your experiences and share what’s worked in an academic environment.

Measuring success in Microsoft 365 & Copilot adoption

Anirudh07 — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 10:18:22 GMT

As a student Microsoft 365 Champion, I’m starting to notice that successful adoption isn’t just about enabling tools — it’s about how adoption is measured and guided.

In my learning, simple analytics (usage trends, engagement patterns, feedback loops) combined with tools like Power BI seem to make a big difference in understanding what’s actually working and where support is needed.

I’m curious — for those working on Microsoft 365 or Copilot adoption, what KPIs or signals have you found most useful beyond basic usage counts?

"Operational Guide for Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption" (DNS error)

ClaudiaCordero1 — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 16:48:11 GMT

Hello Community,

On the official page **Operational Guide for Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption**:

Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption Playbook | Microsoft Copilot

Also https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/microsoft-365-copilot/copilot-adoption-guide

the **“Get the guide”** button points to a CDN link that does not resolve and shows the error:

**DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN** (host: `clouddamcdnprodep.azureedge.net`).

Context:

- Region: France ; Browsers tested: Edge and Chrome ; Date/time observed: January 12, 2026 at 17:24 CET

- Expected: Access to the downloadable PDF/resource associated with the guide

Could you please escalate this to the relevant teams (content/CDN) to fix the link for the “Get the guide” button?

In the meantime, what are the official download URLs for this guide? (in English or French)

Thank you!

How to view all employees in Microsoft Places?

OlivierNL — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 13:44:43 GMT

Now that the Favorites feature has been removed and Microsoft Places only shows frequently used people from Microsoft 365 apps, is there a way to see all employees of the company (65 people) in one overview?

I’m looking for a way to search this list and ideally sort it alphabetically or by department.

Is this functionality planned to return, or is there an alternative way to achieve this today?

CPAi Advisors + Copilot Frontier: Accounting Meets Agent Mode

Dan949 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:40:47 GMT

Hey all — I’m Dan, founder of CPAi Advisors, where boutique accounting meets workflow automation and Microsoft Copilot.

I spent years in public company accounting, working across GL, AP/AR, reporting, and compliance — plus deep ERP integrations and technical troubleshooting. After seeing firsthand how manual and fragmented financial workflows can be, I decided to go out on my own and build something smarter: a boutique firm powered by Microsoft 365 Business Premium + Copilot.

Now I’m exploring how Office Agent (Frontier) can take things further — not just chat in Word or Excel, but actually carry context across apps and orchestrate real accounting tasks.

Here’s what I’m testing:

Agent Mode in Excel → financial models, ledger reconciliation, anomaly detection
Agent Mode in Word → client-ready reports that pull live spreadsheet data
Agent Mode in Outlook → turning email threads into task lists and audit prep
Cross-app orchestration → one prompt that builds a report, updates the spreadsheet, and drafts the email

💡 Focus:

Copilot in accounting workflows
Automating compliance & audit readiness
Bridging trust in AI for financial advisory
Pushing Agent Mode beyond the obvious

Excited to share feedback and help shape what’s next. Let’s make accounting workflows smarter — and a little more fun.

Take care & be well!

🚀 Microsoft Edge Gets Smarter: Copilot with GPT-5, AI Podcast Creation & Advanced Security!

GiulianoDeLuca — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:34:30 GMT

Big news for productivity and creativity lovers! 🎯
The latest Microsoft Edge update brings some game-changing features:

✅ Copilot Smart Mode powered by GPT-5 – Your AI assistant just got even smarter.
🎙 Create Podcasts with Copilot – Turn ideas into audio content effortlessly.
🎨 Generate Images & Videos directly in Edge – No extra tools needed!
🛡 AI-Powered Shield Against Scareware – Stay safe while you browse.

I’ve created a detailed video on my YouTube channel where I explore these features in action and share tips on how to make the most of them.

👉 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/73KEDh2MDow

What do you think about these updates? Which feature excites you the most? Let’s discuss in the comments!

#MicrosoftEdge #Copilot #AI #Productivity #CyberSecurity #GPT5

Reimagining Bing and Copilot: A Creator-Led Movement to Spark Visibility in India

kanishka0911 — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 07:10:16 GMT

Hello Microsoft Community,

I’m Kanishka, a creative technologist and digital storyteller from India, passionate about blending technical precision with emotional resonance. As someone deeply engaged with Microsoft Copilot and Bing, I’ve been reflecting on a bold idea:

What if we sparked a grassroots movement that made Bing and Copilot as visible and beloved in India as Google and ChatGPT—powered entirely by creators, from the comfort of their own rooms?

🌟 The Vision: Creator-Led Visibility for Bing & Copilot

India’s creator economy is thriving. From students and freelancers to influencers and educators, digital creators are shaping tech adoption at scale. My proposal is to tap into this momentum and position Bing and Copilot as tools of empowerment, creativity, and everyday utility.

Here’s how we can do it:

Instagram Carousels & Reels: Showcase Bing’s smart search and Copilot’s AI magic in relatable, bite-sized content—caption writing, coding help, idea generation, and more.
Regional Language Content: Create tutorials and storytelling in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, etc., to make Bing and Copilot feel accessible and culturally relevant.
Festival-Themed Campaigns: Build interactive websites and games using Copilot for occasions like Independence Day, Diwali, or Republic Day—celebrating Indian identity through tech.
Creator Challenges & Spotlights: Launch Microsoft-backed contests and spotlight series to reward innovative use cases from grassroots creators.

🎯 Strategic Impact

Drives emotional connection with Microsoft tools—especially among Gen Z and Tier 2/3 audiences.
Positions Bing as more than a search engine—a smart, intuitive companion for discovery and learning.
Elevates Copilot as a creative partner, not just a productivity tool.
Builds a creator-first narrative that aligns with India’s digital growth story.

💡 Why Microsoft Should Support This Vision

India is not just a market—it's a movement. With over 750 million internet users, a booming creator economy, and a rising wave of digital-first youth, the opportunity to embed Microsoft tools into everyday life is massive. But visibility alone isn’t enough—emotional connection and cultural relevance are key.

Supporting creator-led outreach would allow Microsoft to:

Accelerate grassroots adoption of Bing and Copilot in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, where curiosity is high but awareness is low.
Humanize AI and search tools by showing real creators using them in relatable, everyday scenarios—from writing captions to solving coding challenges.
Build trust and loyalty by empowering creators to become advocates—not just users—who shape how Microsoft is perceived in India.

Position Microsoft as a creator-first brand, aligned with India’s digital aspirations and storytelling culture.
Unlock organic growth through shareable, regional-language content that resonates far beyond traditional marketing.

This isn’t just about visibility—it’s about belonging. When creators lead the narrative, Microsoft becomes part of India’s digital identity.

Warm regards,

Kanishka

Maturity framework for digital transformation

HelloBenTeoh — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 21:52:13 GMT

Before I end up going too much further down a rabbit hole with this, is anyone else using an adoption framework that recognises the tech maturity of users?

Ive regularly used something similar to crawl/walk/run/fly but I’d like to put some more structure around it so it’s easy to apply to any tech. For example, if you pick up anything from the MOCA stack, you can show stages of maturity as people integrate it into their work.

The challenge is that I often see organisations push out a new tool and expect radical change without addressing the basics. If we can provide a flexible, visual for decision makers and a rough roadmap for project managers/learning & development/change, we can be realistic about what to expect.

Keen to hear what others use or if that sort of resource would be useful.

Sample adoption plan (Service Unavailable)

Rasmus_Kjeldgaard — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:35:18 GMT

I'm trying to find a sample adoption plan but the link on become-a-champion throws an error

Does any of you have a sample plan you could share?

MS Places different view on Mac User

TutuNg — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 06:32:20 GMT

Hi there,

does anyone know why on one client (Mac user) the building selection view in MS Places looks like this:

as opposed to the usual view like this?

Thank you for any input!

AI upskilling -10 quick-reads

Lesley Crook — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:52:47 GMT

I just took stock of my blog and found ten on AI adoption! I never bothered to share them all in the public domain, but these themes were of burning interest to me at the time of publishing. However, Microsoft MVP renewal is looming, so I guess it is time to use it or lose it! My blogs combine personal experiences, professional insights, and practical AI-assisted guidance. They are quick reads for anyone interested in AI's evolving, high-impact role in society. I "work out loud," which means sharing your work with a view others might find helpful, and others might help you improve your work. I would love comments.

Children's story creation. With the help of AI, I share my journey of bringing my children’s story, “Joy of Stick,” to life, overcoming challenges such as graphic design costs and time constraints. This a cheeky nod to the “Joy of Sex” book title from the 1970s, but the content is entirely different!
Responsible Copilot Usage. Drawing parallels with past experiences with Yammer's Responsible Usage Policy, now known as Viva Engage. I point out the need for and importance of a responsible Copilot usage policy.
Copilot adoption is easy with Viva Engage. I demonstrate how Viva Engage facilitates the creation of a Copilot champion community. This is also my insight into the differences between seeded and premium features.
AI Upskilling Workshops. Testimonials from professionals across various industries highlight the benefits of my AI upskilling workshops, featuring tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and Copilot.
SWOT Analysis of AI Tools. My AI-assisted analysis of AI personal assistants provides valuable insights into their strengths and weaknesses.
Social, Emotional, and Artificial Intelligence. My AI-assisted exploration examines the interaction between these intelligences and their potential to enhance our IQ.
AI Adoption Steps. My AI-assisted practical advice for consumers on integrating AI into daily life, ensuring effective and beneficial use.
AI's Societal Impact. My AI-assisted reflections on the historical impact of technologies such as calculators, email, and the internet, along with forecasts for AI's future influence.
AI for Beginners. My simple glossary of AI terms for newcomers.
Digital Skills Advocacy. My global petition recommends the relevance of basic digital skills training for new hires and highlights the importance of AI upskilling.