Intermittent Post-Deployment Issues with Copilot Agent Using SharePoint Knowledge Sources
Summary We are testing a Copilot Studio agent following admin approval and installation for a set of users before we launch it to everyone in the organization - the objective being to test out the end user experience and check that everything is working fine. We have encountered several inconsistent behaviours using the agent across both the Copilot app and Microsoft Teams. The issues seem to be resolved after signing out, restarting the application, or signing in again. 📍Looks like a lot of instabilities and poor end user experience with this method & this is blocking us from launching the agent to the organization. Agent Setup Agent built in Copilot Studio & deployed via pipeline (Development > QA > Production) Knowledge source 1: SharePoint connection using Dataverse indexing/synchronisation Knowledge source 2: Live SharePoint connection Tested in the following apps after admin approval/publishing/pinning: Microsoft Copilot app Microsoft Teams Issues observed Agent not visible in Copilot app After agent is approved, installed, shared and pinned (to specific users) from Admin side, the agent is not visible in Copilot app. We gave it over 8 hours after the admin process. Agent appeared after signing out of Copilot app and signing back in again. SharePoint connection consent prompt not displayed Users are expected to receive a prompt with consent to connect to SharePoint (with "Allow" button). What appears is only a message but no card with the "Allow" button. This started working after signing out of Copilot app and signing back in again - so the sign out + sign in had to be done twice Responses not retrieved from Knowledge source 1 In spite of proceeding with the "Allow" prompts, for some users, the responses are coming only from Knowledge source 2 (live connection) & not Knowledge source 1 (connection with dataverse indexing). This is seen both when interacting with the agent in Copilot app and Teams. For some users, this was fixed after signing out and back into the apps Questions Has anyone experienced such instabilities with admin deployment/publishing of agents? If yes, what have you done to sort them out and have you been able to successfully launch agents organization wide with this approach? Does anyone know about known issues/glitches with admin deployment/publishing of agents? We did not see these issues when sharing the agent using Copilot Studio.
Copilot Studio agents problems connecting to Sharepoint knowledge source
Hello, Since last week users in my tenant are experimenting issues regarding the connection between copilot studio agents and Sharepoint. The agents are not able to extract information from Sharepoint sites, printing there is not information in the Sharepoint site regarding the user's question when that information is in Sharepoint. These agents used to work well till last week. Does have been any update in Microsoft 365 services that can be affecting these agents ability to retrieve information from Sharepoint?Update: Root Cause Identified
Hi everyone, I would like to share the root cause and solution in case someone else encounters the same issue. The Problem I created several agent flows directly in Power Automate using: https://make.powerautomate.com The flows were configured correctly: The flow starts with When an agent calls the flow The flow ends with Respond to the agent The flow and agent are in the same environment The flow is included in a solution The flow is published and fully functional The flows could be added to an agent and executed successfully. However, unlike flows created directly from Copilot Studio, they did not appear in the Global Tools directory. What I Investigated I verified: Trigger configuration Respond to the agent action Environment consistency Solution membership Publish all customizations Asynchronous response settings Synchronization delays between Power Automate and Copilot Studio None of these were the root cause. Root Cause The issue was related to the workflow Plan. I discovered that: Flows created directly in Power Automate were assigned: Plan = The user running the flow Flows created directly in Copilot Studio were assigned: Plan = Copilot Studio Although the Power Automate flow was fully functional and could be used by the agent, it was not visible in the Global Tools directory. Solution After changing the workflow Plan to: Plan = Copilot Studio the flow immediately appeared in the Global Tools directory. Configuration Location The setting can be found in the workflow properties under: Primary owner → Plan Important Note Based on my testing, changing the Plan to Copilot Studio appears to be a one-way operation and may not be reversible. It may be a good idea to export or save the flow before making the change. Acknowledgements Special thanks to sohnash for reproducing the scenario and providing troubleshooting suggestions, and to Patty_Velasquez for sharing similar observations that helped confirm the behavior. Hopefully this helps others who encounter the same issue. Best regards, Adhonaï KOUKAPower Automate Flows Created Outside Copilot Studio Not Appearing in Tools
Hello everyone, I'm facing an issue with Copilot Studio and would appreciate your advice. Context I have several Power Automate flows that I created directly from: https://make.powerautomate.com My goal is to use these flows as tools within a Copilot Studio agent. All components are in the same Power Platform environment. What I've verified The flows use the "When an agent calls a flow" trigger. The flows end with "Respond to the agent". The flows are saved and published. The agent and flows are added to the same Solution. The solution has been published. I am using the same account and environment for both Power Automate and Copilot Studio. The Issue Flows that are created directly from Copilot Studio appear correctly under: Tools → Add Tool However, flows created from Power Automate (make.powerautomate.com) do not appear in the Tools list, even though they have the same trigger and response configuration. Question Are there additional requirements for a Power Automate flow to be discoverable by Copilot Studio? For example: Does the flow need to be an Agent Flow rather than a standard Cloud Flow? Are there known synchronization or caching issues between Power Automate and Copilot Studio? Is there a specific setting, solution configuration, or publishing step that I may have missed? Any guidance or experience with a similar issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Copilot Studio: “Get file content using path” fails for table-heavy DOCX files
Hi everyone, I'm investigating an issue with a Copilot Studio Standard Harness agent and would like to know whether others have encountered similar behavior. Scenario I have configured a tool in my agent using: Get file content using path The document is stored in my own OneDrive/SharePoint location and I have full access to it. This is not a chat file upload scenario and not a knowledge source indexing scenario. The agent is retrieving the document through a configured tool action. Behavior Observed Case 1 - Works The Word document contains approximately: ~4.1K words ~20 tables The agent successfully: Finds the file Retrieves the file Reads the content Generates a summary Case 2 - Fails I increase the document slightly: ~4.2K words More tables added The agent now returns a message similar to: The file was retrieved, but its content could not be converted to text. The response still indicates that: File found File retrieved Text extraction/conversion failed Important Observation Initially I thought this might be a word-count limitation, but additional testing suggests otherwise. I tested another document containing: More than 4.3K words Very few or no tables The agent processed that file successfully and generated a correct summary. Because of this, the issue appears to be related more to table-heavy DOCX content than to the total number of words. What Has Been Ruled Out The following do not appear to be the cause: File path issues Permissions/access issues File not found issues Connector authentication issues Large file size issues Chat file upload limitations Knowledge source indexing limitations The same tool and same retrieval approach continue working until the document becomes more table-heavy. Questions Has anyone experienced similar behavior with Get file content using path in Copilot Studio? Does Copilot Studio Standard Harness perform an internal DOCX-to-text conversion step after retrieving the file? Are there known limitations around processing Word documents that contain a large number of tables? Has anyone identified practical thresholds around table count, table complexity, or table-heavy technical documents? Is there a recommended workaround besides splitting the document into smaller files? Any insights, similar experiences, or Microsoft guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!Unanswered Questions on GitHub Copilot Harness in Copilot Studio
We're piloting the GitHub Copilot harness in Copilot Studio (GA August 2026) and several operational and architectural details remain undocumented in the GA FAQ, Microsoft Learn, or licensing guides. Looking for official answers or PM contacts on: Architecture & Execution – When the harness breaks tasks into subtasks, does it use internal sub-agents or only skills/connected agents, what are the exact timeout/retry/max-execution-duration limits for long-running workflows, and are planning/context-retrieval/orchestration internals documented anywhere or is the orchestrator a black box? Model Selection – Can individual skills within one agent use different models or is selection strictly agent-level, how are models chosen internally when multiple skills execute, are any internal models developer-configurable, and what's the roadmap for models being added/retired/deprecated plus the lag between public release and Copilot Studio availability? Cost & Token Optimization – How exactly is the ~45% token reduction achieved, how much control do makers have over context/caching/retrieval/tool calls, what are per-model credit consumption characteristics, which models are most cost-effective for specific workloads, and what's the minimum credit cost for trivial interactions? Memory Management – What are retention periods for session/working/agent memory beyond the documented 28-day user-memory expiry, is true long-term memory supported, and what changed versus earlier implementations? Knowledge Retrieval – Can skills or system instructions influence retrieval strategy/document selection/prioritization/filtering, can planning stages perform conflict/duplicate/version detection before retrieval, and how does the harness decide which sources to search? Apps Feature – What is the "Apps (preview)" capability for, when does it GA, and how does it differ from workflows/skills/adaptive cards/agents? Billing & Credit Sizing – Is there a framework to classify users/agents by expected consumption and size credit allocation per group (citizen vs pro developers), and what's the minimum/typical consumption for simple/medium/heavy interactions? Governance & Admin – Can usage limits be set at user level (not just environment/agent), is there an API/IaC path for large-scale credit assignment, can non-admins view their own consumption/remaining allocation, and is there a self-service request-more-credits dashboard? ALM & Environments – What's the recommended path to move harness agents across Dev/Test/UAT/Prod (Solutions/ALM "setup differs" per parity chart—how?), does GitHub integration replace or complement solution-based deployment, are there recommended AgentOps practices for source control/releases/versioning, and what baseline credits and onboarding model are suggested for citizen developers under usage billing—any enterprise reference implementations?
Copilot Studio + SharePoint: Markdown (.md) Files in Doc Libraries Supported as Knowledge Sources?
Hi all, We’ve been doing some deeper testing with Copilot Studio agents grounded in SharePoint knowledge sources, and I’m hoping to clarify whether what we’re seeing is a known limitation or an undocumented gap. Scenario A Copilot Studio agent uses SharePoint document libraries as a knowledge source The library contains Markdown (.md) files that are intentionally used as canonical design references The same .md files: ✅ Work well when uploaded directly to the agent ❌ Are not retrievable or citable when stored in a SharePoint library and added as a SharePoint knowledge source To help with grounding, we created modern SharePoint index pages that: Explain what the markdown collections are (Patterns, ADRs, Guardrails) Link directly to the canonical folders and files Explicitly state that the .md files are the source of truth The agent can: Discover and summarize the index pages correctly Understand that .md artifacts exist and where they live But it cannot: Read the content of the individual .md files Apply a specific pattern or ADR from those files in a design conversation Cite them as sources, even when permissions and search indexing are confirmed What We’ve Checked Permissions (agent user has access) Folder depth (kept shallow) Search results (markdown files appear in SharePoint search) SharePoint indexing status Work IQ enabled Same content works when attached directly to the agent This behavior also seems consistent with what others have reported here: Markdown works when uploaded directly Markdown retrieval degrades when hosted in SharePoint libraries Questions for the Product Team / Community Are Markdown (.md) files in SharePoint document libraries officially supported as Copilot Studio knowledge sources today? If yes, are there specific constraints (file size, rendering, parsing, indexing) that differ from Word/PDF? If no (or “not yet”), is this a known limitation on the roadmap? Is the recommended pattern to: Convert important markdown files into .aspx pages, or Use thin “index / summary” pages and keep markdown canonical until retrieval improves? We’re happy to adapt our information architecture — just trying to align with the intended platform direction rather than work against it. Thanks in advance for any guidance or clarification. This capability is extremely powerful, and clearer expectations here would help a lot of teams make the right design tradeoffs.Looking for ideas: Reducing "Allow" prompts when using SharePoint Knowledge
Hello community members! I'm hoping to get some advice from people who may have come across a similar challenge with their Copilot Studio "SharePoint knowledge retrieval" agents 🤞 Current setup Agent set up in Copilot Studio and published to channels - M365 Copilot and Teams Agent is connected to 4 SharePoint folders (I'm using Method#1 - see below screenshot for reference). This is essential because the documents inside the folders contain both text and image-based content. This is the only method that brings results Users have permissions to access the content in these folders Problem We are currently preparing to roll out this agent but we've hit a user experience issue that is becoming a blocker for moving forward. When a user interacts with the agent for the first time, they are asked to click "Allow" ... 4 times .. one for each of the folder that the agent is connected to This experience feels heavy for users (based on our pilot feedback) and people give up after the first or second time because they think it is not working. In spite of comms and a video about having to repeat this action until done. We want the first time experience to be as smooth as possible to drive adoption. Also, we are going to expand the solution to include more folders soon - so there is also a concern that number of consent prompts could grow further. What I've tried Used Method#2 to connect to SharePoint folders. While this didn't pop up the "Allow" prompts, as indicated earlier, this approach doesn't work because it doesn't return any results from documents as they contain both text and image content. Tried Method#1 to connect to the library (and use instructions to indicate necessary folders) - this didn't work because the method doesn't allow to connect to libraries. Note - I cannot restructure the library and put all the documents into one folder because that's the way the documents have been maintained for a long time & direct links to the folders are being used across the organization via. emails, decks etc. Looking for advice Has anyone found a way to reduce or eliminate these consent prompts? Are there any other recommendations on using SharePoint as a knowledge source that respects user permissions without these consent prompts? Does anyone know why Method#1 and Method#2 have different user experiences where the first one prompts for consent and the second doesn't?Fix: Hyperlinks render as plain text in Copilot app (but work in the test pane in Copilot Studio)
My use case SharePoint knowledge-retrieval agent built in Copilot Studio to answer employee questions from internal policy and guidance documents. These documents, in addition to text content, contain embedded hyperlinks to internal apps and resources (intranet pages, expense app, ticketing tools etc.). It was important for these links to be surfaced in the agent response so employees can directly follow the link - so they needed to be clickable hyperlinks, otherwise the answer was effectively incomplete. Note that I am not using specific topics/actions to create generative answers. I'm relying solely on instructions. The problem Hyperlinks from the source documents appeared as clickable links in Copilot Studio test pane, but when the same agent was published and accessed via the M365 Copilot app, the links were displayed as plain text - not clickable. My original instructions told the agent to include hyperlinks in content & I also verified that the hyperlinks in the source documents were all absolute URLs. 🙌 What changes finally worked Keeping the original "include links" directive and adding a strict formatting rule that requires both Markdown formatting and an HTML <a> tag wrapper, with the URL preserved exactly. The final instruction lines I included: If hyperlinks are contained within the source content and related to the answer, ALWAYS include them in the response. ALWAYS format the link as full Markdown and preserve the URLs exactly within an HTML <a> tag. What was the problem Copilot Studio is a forgiving renderer. M365 Copilot app uses a stricter markdown rendered that can supress hyperlinks that don't come be default in the format it expects. Hence, including an explicit hyperlink formatting in the instructions helps. I hope this helps someone and saves a few hours in troubleshooting the issue 😉
Microsoft AI Agent Creator Associate Certificate
Hello everyone, I have a question about the Microsoft AI Agent Creator Associate certification. I’m passionate about artificial intelligence and Microsoft Copilot Studio. I’m currently taking the training course and working toward earning the Microsoft AI Agent Creator Associate certification. My question is: Will earning this certification improve my chances of getting a job at Microsoft? If anyone in this community has earned this certification or has experience with it, I’d really appreciate your feedback. Has it helped you get hired by Microsoft or one of its partners? Thank you in advance for your advice and insights!
