Task 3 — Publish your agent to Microsoft 365 Copilot

Part of the Integrate agents with enterprise knowledge and Microsoft 365 lab. New here? Start with Getting started.

Set up (start here): This task publishes the grounded tailwind-knowledge-agent from Task 1. If you don’t have that agent yet, complete Task 1 first (or create and ground it in code with python setup/bootstrap_agent.py from the Labfiles/B-integrate-agents-with-enterprise-knowledge-and-m365 folder). This task is completed entirely in the portal and Copilot — no local code or .env file is required.

Note: This task requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. If you don’t have one, you can read through the steps to understand the process.

Continuing from a previous task? If you already published to Teams in Task 2, the same publishing flow makes the agent available in Copilot too — go straight to Publish to Microsoft 365 Copilot below.

Publishing to Microsoft 365 Copilot makes your agent a Copilot agent that staff can reach directly inside Copilot. This task focuses on the publishing workflow — you won’t write any code.

What is a Microsoft 365 Copilot agent?

When you publish to Copilot, your agent becomes a Copilot agent (also called an extension or declarative agent). Staff can invoke it with @mentions in Copilot, access its knowledge alongside Copilot’s own capabilities, and switch between Copilot and your agent seamlessly.

Publish to Microsoft 365 Copilot

When you publish to Copilot, users can:

  • Invoke your agent using @mentions in Copilot
  • Access your agent’s knowledge alongside Copilot’s capabilities
  • Switch between Copilot and your agent seamlessly

Publish from the portal

  1. Return to the Foundry portal (https://ai.azure.com)

  2. Navigate to your agent (Build → Agents → tailwind-knowledge-agent)

  3. Select the Publish button

  4. Select Publish to Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot

  5. Select Continue

Note: This is the same publishing flow used for Teams. The agent becomes available in both Teams and Copilot through a single publishing process.

Configure publishing details

If you haven’t already published this agent, fill in the configuration (same as the Teams section):

  • Name: Tailwind Traders Knowledge Assistant
  • Description: AI assistant for Tailwind Traders staff
  • Icons: Upload your 192x192 and 32x32 icons
  • Publisher information: Your name and placeholder URLs

Choose publish scope

Select your distribution scope:

Scope Visibility Admin Approval Best For
Shared Under “Your agents” in agent store Not required Personal testing, small teams
Organization Under “Built by your org” for all users Required Organization-wide distribution

For this lab, select Shared scope for immediate access without admin approval.

Complete publishing

  1. Select Prepare Agent and wait for packaging (1-2 minutes)

  2. Select Continue the in-product publishing flow

  3. Confirm your scope selection and select Publish

  4. Wait for publishing to complete

Access in Microsoft 365 Copilot

Once published with shared scope, your agent is immediately available:

  1. Open Microsoft 365 Copilot (copilot.microsoft.com or in Microsoft 365 apps)

  2. Look for the agent store or Extensions panel

  3. Find your agent under Your agents (for shared scope)

  4. Start a conversation:

     @Tailwind Traders Knowledge Assistant What is the return window for a tent?

  5. Or select your agent and ask directly:

     When should we reorder tents, and who is our tent supplier?

  6. Copilot routes the query to your agent and returns information from the Tailwind Traders knowledge base

Note: For organization scope, an admin must first approve the app in the Microsoft 365 admin center under Requests. Once approved, the agent appears under Built by your org for all users.

✅ Checkpoint: Your grounded knowledge agent is now reachable inside Microsoft 365 Copilot, answering staff questions from the enterprise knowledge base.

Cleanup

To avoid unnecessary charges, clean up resources when done.

Delete the agent

  1. In the Foundry portal, go to Build → Agents

  2. Find tailwind-knowledge-agent

  3. Select the … menu → Delete

  4. Confirm deletion

This also removes:

  • The Azure Bot Service
  • Associated configurations
  • Published deployments

Uninstall from Teams

  1. Open Microsoft Teams

  2. Go to Apps → Manage your apps

  3. Find Tailwind Traders Knowledge Assistant

  4. Select … → Uninstall

  5. Confirm uninstallation

Remove Copilot agent

If you published to Copilot:

  1. The agent becomes inactive when the underlying agent is deleted
  2. Users will see an error if they try to use it
  3. An admin may need to remove it from the organization catalog

Next (optional): Task 4 — Work IQ: bring Microsoft 365 signals into an agent