Preparing SharePoint Online for Microsoft Copilot

In our fast-moving digital world, staying ahead means constantly adapting to newer, smarter technologies. Microsoft Copilot is at the forefront of this shift, offering an advanced AI assistant that’s designed to streamline how we work with Microsoft 365 tools.

By integrating with SharePoint Online, Copilot is set to change the game, making our interactions with content not just easier, but more intuitive and efficient. Let’s dive into what Microsoft Copilot is, how it works, and what the top priority is to get your environment ready for your teams to start leveraging it.
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‘I see these Microsoft technologies acting as a co-pilot helping people do more with less’ - Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO Microsoft.

What is Microsoft Copilot?

Simply put, Copilot is an advanced AI assistant for Microsoft products. It's an innovative tool that harnesses the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) alongside data from your Microsoft 365 apps.

This AI-powered assistant is crafted to anticipate your needs, deliver intelligent suggestions and help automate repetitive tasks, helping you to work smarter, faster and more efficiently.

With SharePoint being part of Microsoft 365, Copilot integrates seamlessly bringing all the benefits of having an advanced AI assistant to our collaboration and document management.
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Key Benefits of Copilot in SharePoint Online

Integrating Microsoft Copilot within SharePoint offers significant advantages, boosting efficiency and delivering valuable insights to users. Here are the key benefits:

Automate Repetitive Tasks

Copilot can automate routine tasks such as data entry, content formatting, and scheduling updates. This significantly reduces the time and effort required for these activities, allowing users to focus on more strategic and creative aspects of their work.

Improve Content Quality

By offering intelligent suggestions, Copilot helps improve the readability, accuracy, and overall impact of SharePoint content. It assists in refining language, ensuring consistency, and enhancing the presentation, resulting in higher-quality outputs that better engage the audience.

Provide Actionable Insights

Leveraging its advanced AI capabilities, Copilot delivers tailored insights that support informed decision-making and effective content strategy. Drawing from the rich data ecosystem within Microsoft Graph, Copilot provides relevant and timely information and impact of the insights provided.

These benefits collectively contribute to a more efficient, insightful, and high-quality SharePoint experience, empowering users to achieve better outcomes with less effort.

Preparing for Copilot Integration on SharePoint Online

Getting Copilot up and running on your SharePoint Online can really transform how you work. To make the integration smooth and effective, focus on these key areas:

Moving to the Cloud

If your data is still on local servers, the first step is moving everything to the cloud. This shift to SharePoint Online is essential for using Copilot and improves how your team accesses and shares information.

While moving to the cloud can sound like a big project, a well-planned approach will make sure your data moves safely and your operations continue without interruption.

Our approach at Sope ensures a seamless migration to SharePoint Online, expertly managing file mapping and data migration to minimise any business disruption. This makes the transition smooth and efficient, getting your business into the cloud with ease," - Trent Allday, Sope CEO.

Security and Permission Audit

Next up, It’s important to check your security settings before Copilot starts accessing your data. Make sure only the right people have the right access to sensitive information. Tightening up your permissions helps keep your data safe and ensures Copilot works within a secure environment.

This involves a thorough audit of your documents and permissions to adjust access rights and protect new and existing sensitive data. Copilot does not automatically inherit sensitivity alerts, making this step even more crucial.

Increased Sensitivity Labels

Moving on to increased sensitivity labels, these are key for securing your data when using Copilot in SharePoint Online. These labels classify and safeguard your information based on its sensitivity, allowing only authorised personnel to access it. They not only encrypt your documents but also manage who can share and view them, which is vital for governance and protection of sensitive documents.  

By integrating these labels, Copilot can automatically apply appropriate security measures to documents it interacts with, for better data protection in SharePoint.  

Organised Data and Content

To get the best out of AI tools like Copilot in Microsoft 365, it’s important to keep your data well-organised. Using metadata, labels, and tags helps you sort and manage your content effectively. Metadata provides details about your data’s characteristics, while labels and tags help categorise and organise your data neatly.

This setup makes it easier for Copilot to find and use the right information quickly. Well-organised data leads to more accurate and efficient results, making the user experience with Copilot smoother and more.

Understanding Copilot Prompts

Copilot prompts are simple yet powerful. Think of them as directions you give to Copilot to explain what you need. Whether it's a detailed instruction or just a quick question, the key is to be clear about your goal.  

Getting familiar with how to effectively use these prompts is essential for setting up and maximising the capabilities of your Copilot integration. This understanding will help ensure that Copilot can provide the most accurate and helpful responses to enhance how you work in Microsoft 365.

Education and User Adoption

To fully benefit from SharePoint Online and Copilot, it's essential to help your users adapt to new ways of working. Start with education by showing employees how to use Copilot, through training sessions or lunch and learn webinars.  

Encourage regular feedback to refine the educational materials and customise the Copilot experience for their specific needs. Address any concerns and questions to ease the transition. Successfully integrating Microsoft Copilot into daily ways of working, will improve understanding, increase adoption and boost productivity for your business.

AI Readiness Assessment with Sope

At Sope, we can help you align your Copilot and AI goals with your business needs through a review and discovery audit of your current Microsoft 365 set-up.

We'll guide you in preparing your environment, including a potential SharePoint Online migration, conducting thorough security and permissions audits, organising your content and metadata and support how your organisation and employees can adopt it.

Contact us today to learn more. Our expertise will ensure your organisation is fully prepared to integrate AI technologies and Copilot into your business, helping your people work better together.

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