Copilot Tips & Tricks: Personalization, M365 Agents, and SharePoint Search That Actually Work
Microsoft Copilot is more capable than most business users realize. This guide covers the personalization settings, built-in M365 agents, and SharePoint search workflows that turn Copilot from a meeting-summary tool into a serious productivity layer across your Microsoft environment.
Why Most People Underuse Copilot
Microsoft Copilot is unusual among AI tools because you don't go to Copilot, Copilot comes to you. It's embedded inside Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, working with the documents, emails, and files you already use.
That integration is the value. It's also why most business users underuse it. They open Copilot in Word, get a writing assist, close it, and never explore the dozens of more advanced workflows available across the M365 stack.
This Microsoft Copilot guide covers the three configuration layers that experienced Copilot users rely on every day: personalization settings, built-in M365 agents, and SharePoint search from inside Copilot.
Set these up once and Copilot becomes a meaningfully better tool for your specific role.
Setting Your Copilot Personalization Settings
Copilot personalization tells Copilot how to behave when working with you. This is the highest-leverage setup you can do in 10 minutes.
Where to Find Copilot Personalization
Copilot personalization settings live in a few places depending on your license and the surface you're using:
- Microsoft 365 Copilot (web): copilot.microsoft.com → profile icon → Settings → Personalization
- Copilot in Teams: Copilot side panel → settings gear → preferences
- Copilot in Word, Excel, Outlook: Most personalization is inherited from your M365 Copilot profile, not set per app
Your Microsoft 365 admin may also have set tenant-wide policies that affect what you can change. If certain settings are locked, check with IT.
What to Personalize
Copilot supports a "What should Copilot know about you" style field. Use it to tell Copilot your role, company, and what your work looks like day-to-day. Example: "I'm a finance manager at a 200-person SaaS company. I work in budgets, forecasts, and board reporting. I use Excel constantly and write in Word for board memos."
Copilot supports tone and format preferences. Set these to match how you actually want to receive output. Example: "Respond in concise prose. Avoid corporate jargon. Use bullets only when content is genuinely a list."
Copilot can access your email, calendar, files, and chats inside your M365 tenant. Review what's connected. The more relevant context Copilot can see, the better its output, but only connect what's appropriate for your role.
A Sample Personalization Profile Template
About me: I am [Name], [Role] at [Company]. We are a [size] [industry] company. My typical work: - [Primary task 1, e.g., financial reporting and forecasting] - [Primary task 2, e.g., board memos and investor updates] - [Primary task 3, e.g., budget analysis and variance reporting] How I want Copilot to respond: - Direct and concise. No filler. - Plain English, not corporate jargon. - Bullets only for genuine lists. - When summarizing meetings, always include decisions, action items with owners, and unresolved questions. Tools I use most: - Excel (heavily, for analysis and modeling) - Outlook (for board and investor communication) - Teams (for internal coordination)
Paste this into your Copilot personalization. From then on, every Copilot interaction starts with this context already loaded.
Using the Built-in M365 Copilot Agents
Microsoft has shipped a growing set of built-in agents inside Copilot that handle specific workflows. Most M365 Copilot users don't know they exist.
What a Copilot Agent Is
A Copilot agent is a specialized assistant configured for a specific workflow or domain. Unlike a basic Copilot chat, agents have predefined behaviors, access to specific data sources, and often integrations with specific Microsoft apps or third-party services.
You access agents from the Copilot chat interface. Look for the agents panel or the "@" mention to invoke a specific agent inside a conversation.
Built-in Agents Worth Knowing About
Pulls information from across the web and your M365 tenant to produce structured research reports. Useful for competitive analysis, market research, and topic deep-dives.
Specialized for Excel and data work. Better at multi-step data analysis, formula generation, and chart building than the default Copilot in Excel.
For sales teams, surfaces CRM context, drafts outreach, and prepares for calls. Integrates with Microsoft Dynamics 365 or other connected CRMs.
For support and customer service workflows. Drafts responses, suggests next steps, and integrates with case management systems.
For brainstorming and structured ideation when you want Copilot to push back rather than agree.
Pre-configured to answer questions about your company's HR policies, IT processes, or onboarding procedures based on what's in your M365 tenant.
Microsoft updates the agent catalog regularly. Check the Copilot Agent Store inside your tenant for what's currently available.
When to Use an Agent vs. Default Copilot
Use the default Copilot for general questions, drafting, and conversational tasks. Use an agent when:
- The task is repetitive and matches an agent's specialty
- You need an agent's specific data access (CRM, helpdesk system, etc.)
- The workflow has a structured output you want consistently (research reports, sales briefs, support replies)
Building Your Own Custom Agent
For workflows that don't match a built-in agent, M365 Copilot supports custom agents built in Copilot Studio. This is more involved and typically requires IT involvement, but it's worth knowing the option exists.
If your team has a workflow you repeat 5+ times a week (vendor evaluations, weekly status reports, customer onboarding emails), a custom agent can codify that workflow so anyone on the team can invoke it with consistent quality. Talk to your M365 admin or IT team about whether Copilot Studio is enabled and what governance applies to custom agent creation.
Searching SharePoint from Copilot
One of the most valuable but least-used Copilot features. Copilot can search across all SharePoint sites you have access to, find relevant documents, and use them as context.
Why SharePoint Search From Copilot Matters
Most companies have years of accumulated knowledge buried in SharePoint: contracts, decks, policies, past project work, meeting notes, design docs. Finding the right document is usually slow and frustrating.
Copilot changes this. Ask Copilot a question, and it can search your SharePoint sites by meaning rather than just keywords, pull relevant documents, and synthesize an answer that cites the source files.
This works for questions like:
- "What did we decide about the pricing structure for enterprise customers last quarter?"
- "Find the most recent version of our master services agreement and summarize the key terms."
- "What are the standard sections in our security questionnaire responses?"
- "Pull all the strategy memos written by the leadership team in the last 6 months and tell me the common themes."
Copilot will retrieve the relevant SharePoint documents and respond based on their contents, with citations.
How to Search SharePoint From Copilot
The interface varies slightly across Copilot surfaces, but the pattern is consistent:
- 1Open Copilot. Either copilot.microsoft.com, the Copilot side panel in Teams, or Copilot in Word/Outlook.
- 2Frame the question with context. Tell Copilot what you're looking for and where. Example: "Search SharePoint for our most recent customer onboarding playbook and summarize the key steps."
- 3Use the file picker if you want to narrow scope. Many Copilot surfaces let you explicitly attach a SharePoint site or folder as the scope for your query, which improves accuracy.
- 4Ask Copilot to cite its sources. Always ask "cite the source documents you used" so you can verify the response against the actual files.
Permissions Are Critical
Copilot respects your existing SharePoint permissions. It will only surface documents you already have access to. This is the security model that makes SharePoint search safe — Copilot is not bypassing access controls.
That said, this is also why permissions hygiene matters. If sensitive documents are over-shared inside your SharePoint (common in growing companies), Copilot will surface them to users who technically have access but probably shouldn't. Before deploying Copilot widely, most organizations should do a permissions and data readiness review.
Practical SharePoint Search Workflows
Five workflows worth setting up:
Find precedent
"Find the last three customer contracts we signed and tell me what payment terms we agreed to." Saves 30 minutes of digging through folders.
Synthesize policies
"Search SharePoint for all our security and IT policies and produce a one-page summary employees can reference." Useful for onboarding and audits.
Pull past work as a template
"Find the most recent investor update we sent and use it as a template for this month's update." Speeds up recurring deliverables.
Cross-team awareness
"What has the product team published in their team site in the last 30 days?" Stays informed without scheduling meetings.
Compliance evidence
"Find all SharePoint documents related to our SOC 2 audit from this year and list them in order." Useful when an auditor asks for documentation.
Common Copilot Mistakes
Copilot's value isn't general chat, it's the M365 integration. If you're using Copilot the same way you'd use ChatGPT in a separate browser tab, you're missing 80% of what it does.
Default Copilot output is generic. Personalized Copilot output sounds like you. Spend 10 minutes setting up your profile.
The agents panel is often hidden a click or two deep. Most users never explore it. The agents are some of Microsoft's best Copilot work.
When Copilot searches SharePoint or your email, always ask "what document did you base this on?" Trust but verify.
Copilot surfaces everything a user has access to. If your SharePoint permissions are over-shared, Copilot will amplify the problem, not cause it.
See Using AI Safely at Work for full data-handling guidance.
Where to Go From Here
Master the prompt fundamentals: Prompt Engineering Guide
Compare to Claude: Claude Tips & Tricks if you also use Claude
Apply Copilot to your role: Browse The AI Prompt Library for role-specific prompts
Use Copilot safely: Using AI Safely at Work
Want Your Team Trained on Copilot?
Defensible's AI Readiness Assessment includes the permissions and data review most companies skip before rolling out Copilot. We help you deploy Copilot in a way that delivers value without surfacing sensitive data to the wrong people.