Introduction

With the rise of AI-powered tools across the Microsoft ecosystem, organizations now have the opportunity to streamline internal operations through Copilot Studio. In this blog post, we will walk through how to build an HR Onboarding Assistant for your company — in our case, a fictional company named Power Solution — using Microsoft Copilot Studio. This agent assists new hires with onboarding, policies, IT setup, leave requests, and more, directly within Microsoft Teams.

Use Case: HR Onboarding Assistant

The goal of this assistant is to help new employees with:

• Provide quick access to onboarding documents.
• Explain company policies clearly.
• Assist with IT account setup (email, VPN, MFA, etc.).
• Answer payroll and benefits questions.
• Enable employees to submit leave or PTO requests.

This not only reduces the manual effort for HR teams but also empowers employees to get quick answers and take actions through natural language interactions.

Features Implemented

1. Knowledge-Based Responses via SharePoint: The agent fetches answers from onboarding documents stored in a SharePoint library (e.g., Onboarding site) using AI and NLP, powered by Orchestration and AI Capabilities in Copilot Studio.
2. Contextual Triggers via Orchestration: Natural phrases like “I need to take next week off” trigger the Leave Request topic without needing predefined keywords.
3. Power Automate Integration: Operational tasks like leave requests, document submissions, approvals, and notifications are executed through Power Automate flows, turning the assistant into an actionable Copilot.
4. Teams Integration: The bot is published to Microsoft Teams, available to specific users, groups, or the entire organization (admin approval required for org-wide deployment).

Implementation

Creating the Copilot Agent in Copilot Studio

1. Open Microsoft Copilot Studio and sign with you work or school account.
2. Select your working environment (e.g., Development).
3. Select Create from the left navigation. Here you can see some copilot templates and start if your topic is one of them.

4. Click on + New Agent

5. A new screen will come where you can select the agent language and define Schema and select Solution where you want to create the copilot agent and store its required objects [Recommended].
   1. To change language: click on the Edit Language in the right pane and select the desired language from the popup. Please note that the language cannot be changed later.

2. To select solution: click on the 3 dots (1) on the right side of the screen and select Edit advanced settings (2) and select the solution from the popup dropdown and save.

6. Click on Create to create the Agent. It will take few seconds to create your agent.

7. The agent is ready and now you can configure it as per your use.

Agent Details and Behavior

1. In Copilot Studio, Go to Overview → Details and click on the Edit to edit the agent’s details such as Name, Icon and general instructions.

2. Update the details as per below:
   1. Agent Icon: Upload your icon. (must be PNG and less than 30KB)
   2. Name: Power Solution Onboarding Assistant
   3. General Instructions:

HR Onboarding agent – Power Solution

You are an HR Onboarding Assistant for Power Solution designed to help new employees transition smoothly into their roles. Your goal is to provide essential onboarding information, guide employees through setup steps, answer common HR-related questions, and escalate complex issues when necessary. You should be friendly, professional, and efficient in all interactions.


Guidelines

•	Use a welcoming and professional tone.
•	Keep responses concise yet informative and avoid excessive details.
•	Provide step-by-step guidance when necessary.
•	Link to official HR documents and resources rather than paraphrasing.
•	Do not provide confidential or personal employee information.
•	If a query requires human assistance, ask the user to contact the HR team.
•	Ensure all instructions are clear and easy to follow.


Skills & Capabilities


•	Retrieve and summarize HR policies.
•	Guide employees through IT setup (email, Teams, VPN, MFA).
•	Provide benefits, payroll, and compliance information.
•	Help schedule meetings with HR or managers.
•	Offer reminders for onboarding tasks and deadlines.
•	Escalate unresolved issues to HR representatives.


Non-Standard Terms & Definitions


1.	LEU – Learning Engagement Units. This term is used to quantify the engagement level of learners in various training programs.
2.	Onboarding – The name of our intranet.

3. Click Save to save your changes.

Connect the SharePoint Knowledge Base

1. Upload all the Knowledge base documents into the document library of a SharePoint site. Click here to download.

2. Scroll down to the Knowledge section in the agent Overview Tab. Turn off [1] the AI Knowledge so the agent won’t use information available in public and only use the added Knowledge by us.

3. Click on the Add Knowledge [2], select SharePoint, enter the site address and click on Add and then Save it.

Now, the agent is ready to answer anything asked with the knowledge based we just added.

Adding and configuring topic

Before adding or modifying any existing topic, make sure that the Orchestration is enabled in the Details Section under Overview. The Orchestration feature gives an advantage to the agent choosing the topic with the provided description instead of some fixed given triggers.

1. In Copilot Studio, go to Topics → Add a topic → From Blank

2. Add a title and description, e.g., “Leave Request” with the description “Used when employees want to apply for vacation or PTO”.

3. Leave the Trigger Phrases section empty. With Orchestration enabled, the AI will trigger the topic automatically based on context.
4. Define the conversation flow:
   1. Message: “Good to hear that you are taking some time off!”
   2. Ask Question: “When would you like your leave to start?” (Type: Date)
   3. Ask Question: “When would you like your leave to end?” (Type: Date)
   4. Add an Action: Run a Power Automate flow to send the request to the user’s line manager.
   5. Redirect: Redirect the conversation to “End of Conversation” topic.

3. Click Save to save the topic and click on the Back Icon to exit.

You can follow a similar process to create additional topics like “Payroll Info Request”, “IT Support Ticket”, or “Training Schedule Inquiry” with custom flows and responses.

Publishing the agent to Microsoft Teams

Now the agent is ready with Instructions, Knowledge and a topic. We can publish the agent and make it available in the Microsoft Teams.

1. Click on the Publish and wait for the agent to be published.

2. Go to Channels → Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot

3. Click on Add Channel to add the channel into your bot to be able to publish into Microsoft Teams.

Once you click on Add Channel, the Teams channel will be added to the agent and the agent can be used.

4. To share the agent, Click on the Availability Options in the same pane.

1. Share to specific person: To share the agent with specific people choose the option manage sharing and enter their email/name or you can share with a security group.
2. With this option, the agent will be visible into the Teams apps store of the user/security group members.
3. With this option, the Agent will be available to whole organization after the approval and can be seen on Teams apps store.

Additionally, you can copy link and share the agent to the users and download the zip and upload in the teams as a custom app.

Real-World Prompt Scenarios

Here are a few examples of prompts employees can use:

• “Where can I read the work-from-home policy?”
• “How do I set up my Outlook email?”
• “What is the process for applying for vacation?”
• “Show me the benefits I’m entitled to.”

Download the Knowledge Base

You can download the exact documents we used for testing this HR Assistant Copilot below. These documents serve as the foundation for the agent’s knowledge and responses:

Download Now

Possible Future Topics to Add

• Travel & Expense Reimbursement
• Performance Review Process
• Internal Career Opportunities
• Grievance Redressal Mechanism
• Company-Wide Announcements (via SharePoint Integration)

Additional Microsoft Documentation References

• Overview – Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn
• Add SharePoint as a knowledge source – Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn
• Connect and configure an agent for Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot – Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn
• Key concepts – Publish and deploy your agent – Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn
• Orchestrate agent behavior with generative AI – Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn
• Use the Teams App Submission API to submit and approve your custom apps – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

Conclusion

By integrating Copilot Studio with SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, organizations like Power Solution can create a fully functional HR Onboarding assistant that not only automates processes but enhances the employee experience. This Copilot becomes the go-to for any HR-related information or action.

Have you tried building a Copilot yet? Let me know your use cases in the comments!