Build an HR policy Q&A agent grounded on SharePoint
Task · Copilot Studio: knowledge agent
Time saved · 2-4 hrs to build, then 3-5 hrs a week of HR questions (estimate, not measured)
⚠️ Licensing: you need a Copilot Studio license (prepaid Copilot Credits or pay-as-you-go through Azure), a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, or a Copilot Studio trial. A trial lets you build and test in the test chat, but you can't publish. Agent usage is metered in Copilot Credits; for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users, generative answers and tenant grounding used in Copilot Chat, Teams or SharePoint are zero-rated. Steps follow Copilot Studio's standard experience: if your Home page shows a New experience toggle, Microsoft's quickstart turns it off. Users only get answers from SharePoint content they already have at least Read access to, and encrypted or password-protected files return no answer.
Steps
- Sign in to Copilot Studio. On the Home page, paste the description below into the box that asks what your agent should do (up to 1,024 characters)
- When the Overview page opens, review the generated name, description and instructions, and replace the instructions with the ones below
- Select Add knowledge, choose SharePoint in the Featured section, paste your HR policy site or folder URL, give it a name and a detailed description, then select Add to agent
- To answer only from your documents, go to Settings > Generative AI and turn off Use general knowledge (and web search if it is on)
- Test in the Test your agent pane with real questions, including ones the policies don't cover, and fix the instructions until the answers are right
- Select Publish, then follow the Teams publishing build to put it in front of employees
Prompt / template
Description (paste on the Home page): An HR policy assistant for [Company] employees. It answers questions about leave, benefits, expenses, remote work and conduct using only the HR policy documents on our SharePoint site, and links to the policy it used. Instructions (paste on the Overview page): - Answer only from the HR policy knowledge source. Quote the policy name and section, and include the link. - If the policies don't answer the question, say so plainly and tell the user to contact [HR contact / email]. Don't guess. - Keep answers under 120 words unless the user asks for detail. - For anything about a specific person's pay, performance, medical situation or a complaint, don't discuss details; point them to [HR contact]. - If two policies conflict, show both and say which is newer.
Source · https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/knowledge-add-sharepoint
Also see · https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/fundamentals-get-started
Also see · https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/advanced-generative-actions
Also see · https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/billing-licensing
Last checked · 2026-10-20