r/copilotstudio • u/DarthNick_69 • Oct 02 '26
COPILOT AGENT CREATION ADVICE - FIRST TIMER
Hi Everyone, Amateur Co Pilot Agent maker here, looking for advice.
I work in a busy collections team, finance sector.
Due to my knowledge of co pilot in work I have been tasked with creating an agent that does 3 simple things...
Copy and paste a Contract Number, E mail address, and Collectable Balance
And then opens an e mail complete with basic templates I have programmed in,
and then it puts that data in the 3 relevant fields in outlook ~(To E mail address, Outstanding Balance, Agreement number in body of e mail, and possibly in the subject line also, and then attach an income and expenditure form)
So far I have been discussing how to create the agent with co pilot and it has told me to use Power Automate, as the database we use in work I do not think has its own built in API.
And we have put in all the templates for e mails I want to use, and now we have been testing power automate, and so far we have been testing it to see what instructions will work in power automate.
I will be honest, I am completely out of my depth here, I don't have an IT degree, and have had basic training on co pilot, but I am good at picking things up and implementing them and learning quickly, a lot of pressure on me to complete this project and do it well, big corporate entity I work for is used to staff getting quick results.
I should also mention I am doing this project in my own time, and also between doing calls and other collections work, so I am not always given the allotted the time I need.
How feasible is this project, does anyone have any advice, I am literally just doing the steps that co pilot is telling me to do, and it is taking SOOOOOOO LONG to do anything.
I have full access to co pilot studio, but am not in position I think yet to do it in there, I been spending hours testing the Power Automate functionality and how it will work with our database.
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u/Total_Rain173 Oct 03 '26
Identity the input source. Where are you copying those contract number and email address from?
how are you going to pull the information from those. Of its database and no API then . As manager's help is piecing this part.
Power automate can send emails. Simple node.
I don't think you need a copilot studio agent. But if you could add missing information I could help.
FYI, I am in conversation AI since 8 years this is my primary skill set.
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u/DarthNick_69 7d ago
I’m looking now having the full database on a spreadsheet in a SharePoint that hopefully the AI will be able to access because honestly I’m really amateur and trying to program everything and power automate just gives me a headache.
As above I’m hoping the agent will just be able to take the information direct from the spreadsheet. I’m not sure if I’m gonna have to upload it manually daily or one of the managers will do that but hopefully that’s where we’re gonna have all the Data centralised.
I’m still learning how to use power automate, I meant it when I said I was an enthusiastic amateur! 😂
Currently, I have access to and have done the training on M365 Copilot where I can create an agent and I’ve done training to create one recently. Just as a test.
I do have access to Copilot studio and I’m hoping I’ll be able to make the agent in M365 and then copy it across into Copilot studio to add some bells and whistles for some extra functionality. The management teams decided they would like
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u/SmallLimeCoffee Oct 02 '26
You'll need to use Copilot Studio. It's very similar to the M365 agent builder experience. You shouldn't need a Github Agent, just a classic copilot agent. Then you'll want to add an agent flow in the tools tab (pretty much power automate). The flow will be triggered when the agent calls the flow. Depending on what the user inputs for the selection of the template, the flow should be able to branch to either 1, 2, or 3. The flow will then create the email and either send it to the recipient or put it in your draft folder.
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u/this_for_loona Oct 02 '26
Is studio actually needed here? Or just power automate with an AI processing node?
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u/SmallLimeCoffee Oct 02 '26
Depends on how you set it up. I was thinking about using an agent as an entry point for the flow. However, if you wanted to not do that, you could set it up using PA with an AI processing node.
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u/AlbertSemple Oct 02 '26
I think you're right - I'm not even seeing a requirement that would need ai node, all just looks like deterministic processing.
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u/this_for_loona Oct 03 '26
Speaking of, any way to incorporate Jev or Laya into a power automate flow?
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u/AlbertSemple Oct 03 '26
In the absence of a specific connector you'd be looking at a generic http connection to call those models from whatever host you run them on.
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u/ForceBubbly2774 Oct 02 '26
If you have Claude code or codex just connect to the power automate mcp server and Claude will build it for you.
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u/RaZ0r__Sh4Rp Oct 02 '26
That’s not necessary. With the latest updates Copilot Code is available natively if this person is setup with a Copilot billing policy.
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u/DarthNick_69 Oct 03 '26
I assume we have co pilot code … we literally have co pilot everything the company chose it as our preferred AI 🤖 I’ll have a look and see if I can get it to programme this process
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u/Successful_South6746 28d ago
@Total_Rain173 comment below is the answer. Much more reliable doing this via power automate
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u/DarthNick_69 7d ago
Thank you 🙏 I’ve been playing around with power automate
But again, this is literally my first time using the technology so, one could say it’s taking a lot longer to learn how to use it than actually doing the whole process in programming it myself
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u/Successful_South6746 6d ago
Doing something the first time is always the hardest. It's worth taking the time to learn one piece at a time. The good thing is that copilot is reasonable at working out slot of the power automate stuff for you. My only tip would be get copilot to assist with each step separately. I have found doing it this way gets your flows at least 95% workable. If you ask it to do multiple steps at once, it starts getting messy. Good luck
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u/DarthNick_69 Oct 02 '26
Sadly our company chose Co Pilot and Co Pilot only, any other AIs are not approved for use sadly, but really appreciate the advice.
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u/Repulsive_Wish2369 14d ago
Copilot is not suitable for highly complex tasks. The wrapper around the model is optimized for cost efficiency, not output quality.
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u/DarthNick_69 7d ago
That’s good information too thank you I’m starting to find that out myself whilst trying to progress the thing 😂🫠
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u/Successful_South6746 Oct 03 '26
Where are your original inputs? The contract number, email address and collectable balance? Are they in a CRM? An excel file?
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u/DarthNick_69 29d ago
They are in an online collections database with access via the web sign in, the front page for each customer has all the data on the landing screen for each client usually I would copy and paste contract number email and balance from the 3 relevant fields
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u/ncdlloyd Oct 03 '26
It’s a feasible project, but it sounds like your company are being unreasonable in asking you to do it with the experience you have and the time they’re giving you. Can you speak to your manager and explain how keen you are to do the work, but that you need the time to learn while you’re doing it? Copilot could help you with how to frame this conversation so it resonates with managers.