Create your Copilot agent and add it to Microsoft Teams

In my last few posts, I’ve looked at creating a Copilot agent. Now the next step is to put the agent somewhere useful. In this post I’ll create a basic agent and add it to Microsoft Teams.

Create an agent

To create an agent I’m going through the following steps. For more details also see my Get started post with Copilot Studio.

Visit https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com/ then create a new agent.

Then you could either just hit create or first configure your agent.

I’m going for the Skip to configure option, so that I can give my agent a proper name.

Then after the above I will hit the Create button.

This will now create us our agent. I could now add Knowledge, and Topics, but I’m going to skip that step. Just so that I can keep this post simple and focused on the adding the app to Microsoft Teams.

Adding the agent to Teams

Now if you were to try and add the agent to teams, then you will find that the agent isn’t found (yet). The agent first will need to go through an approval process in Teams.

Turn on Teams

First I’m going to add Microsoft Teams to my Channels. Simply click on Channels, Microsoft Teams and then Turn on Teams.

Then after a short while, the following confirmation will come back.

Then click on the Availability options button and then in my case I’m going to share my agent with everybody within my organisation

Now, agents that are available to everybody will have to go through admin approval.

All we have to do as the agent developer is press the Submit for admin approval button. We will get the confirmation that the app has been submitted for approval. It is slightly confusing why the Submit for approval button is still there. But ignore that button and all seems to be working well.

Approving the app request as an admin

I’m now switching roles. I’m now an admin and I’m going to the Microsoft Teams Admin Center.

Pending approvals is 0 …

However if you wait a few minutes the pending approval should be there.

Using the search I can now find my agent that I developed earlier.

The app has been clearly marked as Blocked. To unblock the agent the Teams Administrator will have to approve the app.

Then you click on the agent link, you should find yourself on the following screen:

One of the challenges now is that the above doesn’t give the administrator any clue on who developed this, what its purpose is. So expect that an administrator will expect a call from you after you published the agent.

Anyway, I’m going to publish this agent, by clicking on the publish button. However the Publish button it may not work. Did you noticed the red error message in the previous screenshot? Also resubmission of the app may give errors related to App not found.

This is where we need to press that submission button again. The second or third time you press the Submit for admin approval will make the app registration/approval work.

After the admin has approved your agent, you will find that you will still get the App not found message when you submit it for approval again. Hey, aren’t we all impatient? Until you get the Conflict detected, the approval process may still be running.

During this approval process the administrator will even find that the app disappears from the list of available apps. Once the approval process has finished the app will be back. This often takes about 5 minutes.

The administrator will now also see who has permissions to the agent.

Adding the Copilot agent to a Team

Finally we have got to the final step. Our app is now published, however …

After Open agent if you click on Add

Then you might get the Something went wrong. This message may even appear for quite a while.

Then suddenly after about an hour or more the app will appear in the app store.

And then it will be possible to add the app to your Teams setup.

Once we added the app to Microsoft Teams, it can be used. Once important note, for when you name you agents. Keep the names short. Keeping the name below 30 characters is a good idea. I guess it is time for a cup of Tea now.

More about Copilot Studio

For more posts about Copilot Studio, read my Copilot Studio User Guide