Copilot Studio
10-week practical plan to learn Microsoft Copilot Studio inside out — via a real project, not tutorials. Goal: portfolio piece + interview-ready demo. Background: BA career differentiation as AI reshapes the workforce.
6 phases · ~10 weeks
The Morning Agent
A Copilot Studio agent that runs Patrick's actual morning routine — live stock prices, news briefs, thesis recall, portfolio summary — delivered into Teams. Real daily use. Every module teaches a different platform capability.
"I built a personal version of an executive intelligence agent — topic-based flows for structured queries, live external API data via custom connectors, a private knowledge base, and automated delivery into Teams via Power Automate. Here's the same architecture applied to your environment: swap my stock API for your CRM, my KB notes for your SharePoint, and the morning trigger for whatever operational cadence your team needs."
Phases
Topic-based bot + stock API
Build the shell. Topic-based conversation flows, entities, variables. Connect to Alpha Vantage live price API via custom connector. No generative AI yet — structured and predictable. This is the corporate-safe architecture.
Knowledge base connection
Connect your stock thesis notes (Word docs / markdown) from OneDrive/SharePoint as a knowledge source. Topic-triggered recall — user asks explicitly, bot retrieves and returns. Bridge toward generative without going full AI yet.
Generative AI layer
Enable generative answers as a fallback. Topics handle scripted scenarios. Generative handles the rest via the knowledge base. Tune confidence thresholds. Now you can articulate when each mode is appropriate — the sophisticated interview answer.
Actions + Power Automate
Agent that does things, not just answers. Trigger flows, send summaries, schedule the morning brief. This is the step from chatbot to agent — and the most impressive demo capability.
Teams deployment + PL-900
Production-quality deployment. No rough edges. Clean error handling. Then knock out the PL-900 cert while the knowledge is fresh — it's quick, and it's what job specs filter on.
Enterprise demo: IT Helpdesk Agent
Clone the architecture. Strip personal data. Rebuild as a generic IT helpdesk agent — topic-based for common IT requests, knowledge source for policy/FAQ, simulated ticket logging via Power Automate. This is the corporate demo that lands in a room.
Personal → Enterprise mapping
Every personal capability maps 1:1 to a corporate equivalent. This is the bridge you explain in interviews.
Same custom connector pattern. Different data source.
Same knowledge source connection. Different documents.
Same Power Automate flow. Different content and cadence.
Same topic-based architecture. Different domain.
Resources
Subscription active under Tideform. Any client work using Copilot Studio is billable / credentialled experience. Keep the subscription while actively building.