Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 13 Jun 2023

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From YouTube: Introduction to Power Automate Copilot

Description

Power Automate Copilot was released 3 weeks ago at Build along with the modern cloud flows designer tool that helps Makers build cloud flows. In this 16-minute developer focused demo, Kishor Subedi and Lan Li deliver a Live demo showing end-to-end build experience. Express your intent in natural language, designer creates the automation for you. Review suggested flow logic, update logic in real-time, then generate actual flow, ask Copilot to explain flow to you. Powered by GPT in the back-end.

This PnP Community demo is taken from the weekly Microsoft 365 Platform Community call recorded on June 13, 2023.

Demo Presenters
• Kishor Subedi (Microsoft)
• Lan Li (Microsoft)

Supporting materials
• Article - Introducing Copilot in Power Automate & NEW Cloud Flow Designer - Reza Dorrani (Microsoft) | @rezadorrani

Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/community/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/community/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - http://aka.ms/community/home

A

Foreign folks, so I'm Kishore I, am the PM in power, automate I'm, a PM in power, automate I work specifically in the maker experiences, so when you're actually building your flow. So that's the maker experience I'm talking about um today, I'm joined by my colleague Natalie, who is also working really close by by my team, also, and today, this next 10 to 15 minutes discussion is going to be around power, automate co-pilot. We are excited to share the news that we released power, automate co-pilot at build, so that was May 23.

A

uh So it's been about two to three weeks and we've been getting a lot of positive attention. Some negative feedbacks uh around the experience that we're constantly trying to iterate and do better. So this uh call we just wanted to share a few things. What what does it mean um to have a co-pilot in power automate, uh just sharing some things around like um potential improvements to co-pilot and what feedback we've been learning and also just get a feel from this audience on? What would you like to see right like just just like the?

A

You are an extension of the product team and we want to work uh closely uh in in shaping the future of power. Automate co-pilot, so I would really appreciate the uh the guidance and the feedback here if you've had a chance to uh to use it.

A

If you do not have, if you have not had a chance to do so, I'll also share to you uh instructions on how you'll be able to do so and also, uh please feel free to be engaged on the chat as well uh Natalie's the acting moderator for this session, so she's going to be monitoring and just replying to those to those chat messages like if there are things that we need to follow up on. uh We will definitely follow up on that as well.

A

uh So, yes, we can get a go ahead and get started uh so power automated co-pilot, at build right, like the I I, put a small screenshot um to the right of the screen here that that just tells you what what experience I am referring to. So this experience this co-pilot pane that you see right by the power automate cloudflows designer, uh is this M365. This Power Platform wide a consistent um uh ux in terms of a copilot pane that is, that is serving the product right, like you have copilot in powerapps PVA.

A

You also have it in PowerPoint teams like the the concept and the ux like we try to stay aligned um with the platform and with also with the company-wide guidance. uh So basically the idea here is you go to Power automate, to create automation, uh to uh uh to streamline to automate your boring, repetitive tasks, so think about all the hours that you've spent uh copying files from SharePoint to OneDrive syncing files from from dataverse to to excel. uh uh There's a there's, some workflow that you have.

A

That starts from teams when somebody posts a message and then there's this. This set of events that you've always followed through and there's no changes. uh What about you could automate it um seamlessly right? uh That's where the power of power automate comes uh comes from, uh but also we take it a step further with power, automate co-pilot, where essentially, you create these automations right, uh the same way as you interact with uh chart GPT right. So in a conversational way, you express what you want. You express your intent of creating this Automation and power.

A

Automate co-pilot builds that automation for you, so that is the overarching concept of paradment co-pilot, it's available in U.S preview environment, as of May 2023, where aggressively looking to roll out in more regions uh as I'm as I'm speaking in the meantime, uh together with power automate co-pilot, we also introduced the new cloudflows designer as well. So this is the first designer refresh that the product has gotten since the first time we actually released the product. So this is pretty fantastic.

A

uh We want you to use and get the value out of both the designer and the co-pilot, and we're really excited and we're curious to hear your feedback as well, so again, to reiterate the co-pilot bills flows from natural language right. It builds automation from your natural language. It can be as simple as when this happens do that right and it actually understands what you're trying to automate and it puts up a flow for you. So on the right you see, I said when someone sends me an email. Mentioning me again, like that's important.

A

Send me your team's message, because I do get a ping uh in teams and in that way it's easy for me to stay. On top of these mentions in power mobile just build a flow for you within within a few seconds, and without you having to set up without you having to uh to build it from scratch, so it actually helps build flows. It also helps edit flows within the designer right, so you can tell oh I actually don't want to get notified through teams.

A

I I actually want to get notified in my mobile app in my mobile power, automate app and you you can just ask that in the copilot Pane and it understands that intent and then changes that action uh in the flow for you. So not just building flows, but also the value is uh within the designer. It helps you edit the flow we are supporting, 180 connectors uh more to follow 100. We want to increase. We want to support more connectors as well.

A

There is limited parameterization support in the flow at this time in the co-pilot at this time, so that just means um so in terms of parameterization I'm. Talking about um the static text that you put in the action, Fields, the dynamic content, uh the drop down values that you have the Expressions that you put so we have limited parameterization but again we're aggressively looking to to expand more on it right, because the work just does not stop.

A

When you just create a flow, we have to set the flow correctly right, so we have to uh set the connections properly. We have to set the parameters correctly so that for someone who's new to power automates for or for someone who just wants to save time, creating an automation that the process is as seamless as possible um on to the next slide. I also want to show you a quick live demo of what I'm talking about so I'm in make.preview.powerautomate.com, um quick time check how much time do I? Have you.

B

Are running good to go um like around? Maybe uh three to four minutes left perfect.

A

So what I want to do is I'm on the power automate homepage right now, and you see that the home page is powered by co-pilot right there right so I have all these different options that I can go through in power automate, but home pays uh ux. You see that copilot has been integrated into the home page.

A

um There are a few different entry points for the copilot, but I just wanted to go through this hero. uh Hero scenario that everyone's going to be using, mostly so in the co-pilot. What I want to do is I want to send a congratulations, email to new hires stored in a SharePoint list right, so I work for a company I I want to make the new hires feel welcomed uh and I want to send a congratulations.

A

Email, uh and one thing I want to also do here is I, don't want to send them right away right, like I, want to actually send it on a particular day, uh whether that's a Monday uh or a Friday. I can choose a day, so one thing that I can do is I can quickly iterate over the prompt that I. Just put so you, as you can see, copilot actually built a flow for me right.

A

So this is this means the flow starts when an item is created in SharePoint and the flow will do what the flow will do is it will actually send an email uh and we I can I can basically Monitor and I can check who this email is being sent to. So one thing I I do I want to do.

A

Is I only want to send these emails on Monday so, as you saw that the flow got updated real time uh now, the trigger had changed to recurrence right, because we want to uh trigger the flow on a recurrence basis. We only want to trigger the flow on Monday, so that is why the flow understood that intent change the flow for me is getting the items from SharePoint. It's looping over each of the items.

A

It's checking for a condition, uh and it's actually sending an email right like I, might not need the condition, but it's actually uh I might not leave the condition, but I might as well right like I want to make sure.

A

If, like is there a column in SharePoint that says, has the email been sent in that case, I would need a condition, but again this might not be exactly what I'm looking for, but I can definitely go to the next step, remove and just like iterate over the uh the flow that copilot built for me and again, like as we keep making the model improvements as we keep making the the co-pilot improvements.

A

uh These slight nuances are are going to be improved as well, so on the next step, I just see the green checks, I'm ready to go I want to create my flow um uh and boiler right, like I see um that co-pilot has actually built a flow like a ready to go flow for me uh it it tells me it's connected to SharePoint, like I'm, all ready to go um I can even I can check for these uh fields, or these actions, like is this- um is this?

A

Is this okay right like like what is this flow doing so I can even ask in copilot pane explain what this flow is doing or explain the flow right. Let's see what uh copilot returns, this flow is triggered. Every Monday using a recurrence trigger it, then retrieves items from a SharePoint list and Loops through each item. If a condition is met, it sends an email using the Office 365 connector. So that sounds good enough for me uh now one thing I want to do is I.

A

Don't want the condition right, like I, don't want to check the condition.

A

um I've created a system where, as soon as the um the new hires email is in the SharePoint list, I can send an email, so I don't need to check if uh I've already sent an email to them. So it's just it's just a slight Nuance there. uh If I might need the condition in which case I would just try to set up this condition, but I I don't need it.

A

Let's see if copilot actually says, uh does what I tell it to so I said: delete the condition action there you go so it's actually removed that condition. For me, so the flow looks simple right like every Monday. uh It's getting items from SharePoint I obviously need to choose what site address. What list I'm referring to then it's actually sending an email to to people with a subject and a body.

A

um One cool thing I want to also and uh tell here, is uh on send email body uh write a lighthearted, don't welcome message: uh two new hires in contoso company right. So let me see if actually uh so, it's being powered by GPT in the back end. So hopefully GPT is able to write uh an email body uh in a light-hearted tone welcoming people to contoso, and there you go.

A

It says hello, new hires, we're thrilled to have you join our team, so I did not have to write anything here right so in the next iterations I. Don't even have to um write this follow-up. Prompt, hopefully, co-pilot, understand that I'm writing a congratulation email and it just puts the email body automatically um so yeah. It's just a process of improving the the experience that we have um and yeah. So that is where I want to take a pause.

A

uh I I just showed you an end-to-end experience of how you express your intent of an Automation in the power automate co-pilot to create a flow to create an automation for you and again like I. All I need to do is I need to say my flow. There are a few missing parameters like I need to um just put the site address list address and then and the automation is all ready to go. Coming back to the slide.

A

uh We're excited to share that the new designer is open source, so the the designer surface that you're seeing here except the co-pilot, so we are not taking contributions for the co-pilot at this moment, um but the designer itself is open source and, as you saw like this is an like an exciting uh Point uh in time where the product team is actually taking contributions uh from the customers on any changes. Right, like obviously like we have like we keep trying improving the the product, the designer experiences, but time is of the essence.

A

The capacity is always limited, but if there are some things that the product team just might not have been getting to it's, it's an awesome opportunity to work with the product team in contributing um to the designer repo uh the code lives in GitHub and, if you're interested in contributing to the to the new designer, please drop your email on the chat um or just please feel free to ping me or Natalie, um and we can. We can get that we can get that ball rolling.

A

um uh So this is this. Is this is a fantastic opportunity and we can talk about what features or what uh updates that we, that that makes the most sense to work uh with right. So it's a collaborative approach.

A

uh Having said that, uh I want to now focus more on the on the feedback. I know some of you might be familiar. Some of you might have already used copilot. uh Some of you might be familiar with power automate, but have not used copyrighted, and some of you might just never heard of power automate right, like whatever cohort you are in. uh How can we improve copied like this is a feedback session that I want to have really quickly from the from the group? Here um there are a few Avenues.

A

uh We are thinking to take copilot again like this is not concrete. These are just uh um just a list of items that we that have been uh brought up so far. uh Multi-Turn right, like can, can uh co-pilot be more proactive. Can can it help clarify questions? Can it like you see? You saw that there were missing parameters. Co-Pilot, like really did not care about those missing, but I understand. Can it be more proactive? Can it help me fill those parameters and say my automation? uh Do we need to support put more connectors?

A

Do we need to support parameterization? There is also the ask for: can copilot generate an expression for me? Can it help fix errors right, like that's? A big bucket like I, keep running into errors, while building flows can it help fix errors, yeah.

B

A

Please, if you have any feedback around co-pilot, please put it on the chat we would love to hear from. You uh feel free to directly ping us as well. If you have questions around how to access or how do I provide feedback but yeah. Thank you for the opportunity uh and yeah we're excited for this new Journey. Thank.

B

You thank you for sure, fantastic stuff. You know not enough justice, so the time that we have here allotted please just take the conversation to chat, and um you know we'll follow up there.