Tag / Copilot

by Simon Doy

Part 4: App-Powered Microsoft Planner Tasks – Features I would like to see in App-Powered Tasks


Introduction

This blog post is part of a series discussing Microsoft Planner’s App-Powered Task feature.

In this blog post, I wanted to share some ideas, features and thoughts about where I would like to see Microsoft App-Powered Planner Tasks go.

Agent-powered Planner Tasks

Currently, we are discussing app-powered tasks which are assigned to users, as in humans. However, imagine if we could assign tasks to an AI Agent such as a Copilot Agent. These “Agent-Powered” Tasks would be really powerful. If we could assign work via a task to a Copilot Agent. The Agent could then do what is being asked, feedback the results via the task comments, and reassign the task. This truly would help us integrate Agents into our everyday work and really bring them into the flow of work and the business process flow.

I’ll coin the phrase, “Agent-Powered Tasks”; you heard it here first! ☺️

App-Powered Tasks Make It to General Availability

I am sure that Microsoft will release App-Powered Tasks into general availability (GA). I really hope that they do, as it is a big gap in the Microsoft 365 platform. Once they do then I think people will really start to make use of Planner-powered tasks because suddenly, there is enough control.

It’s a chicken and egg situation; if technology stays in preview and is not ready for production use, then it is difficult to see that organisations will use it. Fingers crossed.

Part of Microsoft 365 Base License

Additionally, I hope and expect that this feature will be a base Microsoft 365 license feature rather than a Planner Premium feature. The fact that there is all the plumbing to do and the use of Teams Apps to me means that there won’t be the additional processing and, therefore, the additional expense for Microsoft to run this feature. Compare this to a feature such as a Copilot, which has the underlying cost of running the LLM workloads.

If Microsoft don’t include this in the license, then they will really impact Microsoft Planner adoption. Additionally, as Microsoft Planner forms the base for task management and if organisations want to adopt some of the premium features, then app-powered tasks increase the likelihood of that happening.

Fingers crossed that Microsoft agree with me 🙂

Power Platform Integration

There needs to be an easy way to work with the APIs through Power Platform Connectors.

If these are available, then we could drive the task workflow via Power Apps, manage the process and task completion via Power Apps

Task Outcome Field

The other thing and maybe I am missing something, is that I think tasks need an Outcome field where you can put the final results of a task. We used to have this with SharePoint workflows back in the day.

Currently it’s difficult for a human or an AI agent to know what the outcome of the task has been in this custom logic world.

Conclusion

In this post, we discussed some ideas and thoughts that I would love to see in these Planner App-Powered Tasks.

I really do hope that licensing doesn’t become a barrier to this feature; anyway, we will see what happens as this amazing feature evolves.

Thanks for reading!

An image of person thinking about whether to use which AI Search tool
by Simon Doy

Knowledge Copilot Agents – To use or not to use Azure AI Search?


Introduction

Updated: 14th January 2025 – The guidance has been updated by Microsoft and the Enhanced Search which uses Copilot Semantic Index does not require every user to have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/knowledge-copilot-studio

This article discusses some of the things to consider when deciding whether to use Azure AI Search as the data source for Copilot Agents.
The AI world is moving quickly, and Microsoft is also moving quickly with constant updates and changes to its propositions.

However, one of the issues that we have found at iThink 365 when building Knowledge Copilots for our customers is that the quality of the Copilot and the user experience are directly related to the quality of the search results underpinning it.

Generally, we have used Azure AI Search as our search engine which we have seen has provided dramatically better results for our customers. The reason is the type of search technology underpinning the Copilot. Azure AI Search is built for AI workloads and can be configured to use several different search technologies including Semantic, Keyword, Vector and a hybrid of these search technologies.

However, the use of Azure AI Search does increase the cost of running the Copilot because you are paying for Copilot Studio, Azure Open AI and Azure AI Search resources. Whilst some people would say that this is not worth it due to the increase in cost, it really is the only solution for getting the results that customers expect.

The reason for the Azure AI Search approach is that the base Copilot Studio uses the basic Microsoft 365 search engine when Copilot is accessing knowledge held in SharePoint. This experience uses Keyword based searches to give results and we have found that the experience for customers has not been as good.

However, it is important to keep up to date with Microsoft and their changes. Microsoft have been listening to the feedback from their customers, MVPs and partners and so at Ignite 2024 they announced the introduction of Copilots built on Copilot Studio to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot Semantic Index. This has the potential for really improving the experience for users and brings the experience more inline with what we have seen with Azure AI Search.

There is something to be aware of, to be able to take advantage of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Semantic Index your organisation and users need to be licensed for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Without the licenses, your Knowledge Copilot will not be able to use the premium search capabilities and therefore Copilot Semantic Index.


 
Questions to help make your decision

So, our decision on whether to use Azure AI Search or not is based on the following questions:

  • Does one user have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license?
  • Are the documents being accessed with knowledge in them, either PDF, DOCX or PPTX and are they less than 512MB in size?
  • Is all the information that needs to be accessed held in supported documents in Microsoft SharePoint?

If the answers to these questions are yes, then my suggestion is to do a proof of concept using Copilot Studio and the premium search experience and test to see if the user experience is good enough so you do not need to use Azure AI Search.

However, if the answer is no to either or following testing the user experience then I would recommend using Azure AI Search to give our customers the experience that they deserve.

Conclusion

I hope that this helps you understand when to use which approach with your Microsoft Copilot solutions, in particular those with Knowledge Copilot and Copilot Agents.