The Power of Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot is a dynamic AI tool. It uses large language models to assist across Microsoft 365, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Acting as an intelligent assistant, Copilot supports content summarisation, insight generation, data handling automation, and project management. It integrates with everyday applications, addressing various business challenges and enabling smarter work.

Enhanced Productivity with Copilot in Microsoft Word

One key Copilot use case is simplifying document creation. Drafting documents, reports, and proposals can be time-consuming. Copilot in Word helps teams generate drafts, refine language, and adjust tone for specific audiences.

For example, an HR team preparing an employee handbook can use Copilot to generate content from guidelines and policies. Copilot ensures clarity, compliance, and consistency. This frees up time for higher-level tasks like strategy and employee engagement.

Accelerated Data Analysis in Microsoft Excel

Data analysis is crucial for decision-making but can be complex. Copilot streamlines data analysis in Excel. Users can ask questions in natural language and receive structured responses, avoiding complex formulas or pivot tables.

For instance, a finance department analysing monthly sales data can use Copilot to identify trends and forecast demand. Copilot simplifies data interpretation, helping businesses make better decisions quickly.

Smoother Communication and Task Management in Microsoft Teams

Effective communication is key to success. Copilot’s integration with Teams enhances collaboration. It summarises conversations, flags important points, and generates action items.

A project manager can use Copilot to review meeting notes and extract key points. Copilot can also create summaries of updates from team members, helping managers stay on top of tasks and delegate effectively. This reduces miscommunication and aligns team efforts.

Presentation Design and Content Creation in PowerPoint

Creating presentations is time-intensive. Copilot in PowerPoint helps users create compelling presentations. It generates slide content, formats layouts, and suggests relevant images or icons. For example, a sales team can use Copilot to turn data into engaging slides. By automating content creation, Copilot allows the team to focus on tailoring messages to the audience instead of design details. This streamlines the process and ensures consistency in brand messaging.

Email Management and Automation in Outlook

Email overload is a common issue, and helps form one of the most compelling Copilot use cases. Copilot in Outlook automates responses, generates summaries, and prioritises messages. This is helpful for client-facing roles requiring quick responses. For instance, a customer service representative can use Copilot to draft personalised responses. Copilot also categorises and prioritises emails, reducing the mental load on employees.

Project Tracking and Management in Microsoft Planner

Managing projects can be challenging, especially with remote teams. Copilot assists in Planner by monitoring deadlines, assigning tasks, and providing reminders. For example, one common use case for Copilot is when a marketing team launching a campaign can use Copilot to create a project plan, set timelines, and track progress. Copilot’s reminders ensure tasks are completed on time and bottlenecks are identified early. This keeps projects running smoothly.

Streamlined Knowledge Management with Copilot

Information overload is another challenge. Copilot helps with document search, summarisation, and tagging. A legal team can use Copilot to search for clauses, summarise contracts, or flag critical information. This functionality is beneficial for knowledge-based businesses as it quickens information retrieval and reduces oversight.

Conclusion

Microsoft Copilot addresses challenges in productivity, data analysis, communication, and project management. By integrating AI into Microsoft 365, it empowers teams to work efficiently and make data-driven decisions. This tool supports businesses in navigating today’s digital landscape, helping them stay competitive.

As Microsoft innovates, Copilot’s potential will grow and the amount of use cases for Copilot will grow exponentially. It is an essential tool for any forward-thinking organisation. By leveraging Copilot, businesses can unlock new productivity levels, positioning themselves for long-term success in a tech-driven world.

About Us

Emerge Digital is a tech and digital innovation company. We offer services from IT support to cyber security, cloud infrastructure, and AI consultancy. We empower businesses to harness technology’s full potential. Our tailored approach ensures solutions align with clients’ goals, driving growth and efficiency. Partner with us to transform your business and achieve success.

Why Build a CRM with Power Apps?

Power Apps is a low-code tool within Microsoft’s Power Platform that makes building applications accessible without extensive coding. Many traditional CRMs are costly and require adapting to their limitations, but Power Apps lets you build a CRM aligned with your processes. Power Apps integrates with other Microsoft 365 products like Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, ensuring seamless data flow and simplifying collaboration. Since it’s built on Microsoft Dataverse, Power Apps is also scalable, adapting easily as your business grows.

Define Your CRM Requirements

Start by outlining what your CRM needs to achieve. Identify the key features, data points, and workflows your CRM should support. Consider how different departments will use the CRM and any specific automations that would improve client management. Defining these goals early on ensures the CRM meets your business’s unique needs, helping you shape its structure and functionality.

Set Up Your Power Apps Environment

Next, create a new environment in Power Apps, which serves as the foundation for your CRM. Setting up permissions and user roles at this stage is critical for data security. Define who can access and edit client data, ensuring that only authorised team members have the appropriate permissions to manage sensitive information.

Design Your Data Model in Microsoft Dataverse

The data model is the backbone of your CRM, defining how customer information is structured and stored. Use Microsoft Dataverse to set up tables for essential entities, such as customers, contacts, leads, and sales activities. This structured data model will store all client interactions and support linking related data, like associating a contact with their respective organisation or a lead with a specific project. With a well-organised data model, you’re building a CRM that can easily scale as your business grows.

Build the CRM Interface in Power Apps

With the data model in place, begin building your CRM interface using Power Apps’ drag-and-drop builder, which is accessible even to non-developers. Choose between canvas apps, which offer flexibility for customising the interface, and model-driven apps, which are more structured and ideal for CRM applications. Design the main screens for your CRM, including dashboards, data entry forms, and client interaction logs, ensuring the interface is intuitive and user-friendly for team members.

Automate Workflows with Power Automate

Incorporate automation with Power Automate to improve efficiency. Automating repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails or creating reminders for client interactions, saves time and reduces human error. Power Automate workflows can trigger actions based on specific events within the CRM, helping your team manage client relationships proactively and consistently.

Embed Analytics with Power BI

To support data-driven decision-making, embed analytics within your CRM using Power BI. Power BI allows you to create dashboards displaying sales metrics, customer engagement trends, and key performance indicators, which can inform your client engagement strategies. These real-time insights enable your team to refine approaches and make data-backed decisions.

Benefits of Building a Custom CRM with Power Apps

Building a CRM with Power Apps offers substantial benefits. A custom-built CRM tailored to your workflows enhances operational efficiency and reduces costs. The integration with Microsoft 365 allows for a centralised data management platform, simplifying collaboration across departments. Additionally, Power Apps is designed to scale with your business, enabling your CRM to grow and evolve without the need for costly overhauls.

Conclusion

So, can you build a CRM with Power Apps that saves time, money, and aligns with your business’s unique needs? Power Apps provides a flexible, affordable platform for creating a custom CRM solution that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365, helping you streamline operations and manage client interactions efficiently. For businesses looking to reduce costs without sacrificing functionality, a Power Apps CRM is an ideal solution that adapts and grows with your business.

About Us

Emerge Digital is a technology and digital innovation company and Managed Services Provider dedicated to helping SMEs achieve tech-powered growth.

From custom CRMs built with Power Apps to cyber security and cloud infrastructure, our services are designed to help your business operate efficiently and competitively. If you’re ready to build a custom CRM, Emerge Digital is here to guide you every step of the way.

What Is Microsoft 365Copilot?

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI-driven assistant integrated into Microsoft 365 and other platforms. It utilises machine learning to understand user context, streamline workflows, and provide actionable insights based on the data within your organisation. Whether you’re using Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Teams, Copilot enhances the work experience by automating repetitive tasks, providing data-driven insights, and enabling more effective collaboration. Emerge Digital maximises Copilot’s capabilities to meet each client’s unique needs, helping them optimise their Microsoft environment for both productivity and growth.

Key Benefits of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Enhanced Productivity and Time Savings

Copilot automates repetitive and time-consuming tasks across Microsoft’s platforms, freeing up your team to focus on higher-priority work. In applications like Word and Excel, Copilot can generate text summaries, create charts, and pull in data with ease. Tasks that previously took hours can now be accomplished in minutes, transforming productivity.

Data-Driven Insights and Analysis

For data-intensive work in Excel, Copilot can analyse large datasets, identify trends, and generate visual reports without manual intervention. This capability is invaluable for teams needing quick, reliable insights to make data-driven decisions. With Copilot, meaningful information is extracted faster, enabling responsive and informed decision-making.

We often use Copilot to create instant data visualisations and summaries, providing clients with powerful insights that drive actionable results.

Simplified Collaboration in Microsoft Teams

In today’s hybrid workplace, collaboration tools are indispensable. Copilot enhances Teams by summarising chat conversations, generating meeting notes, and organising action items, keeping teams aligned and on-task. For instance, if a team member misses a meeting, Copilot can quickly summarise key points, ensuring they’re up-to-date and informed.

Efficient Email Management with Outlook Copilot

One of the standout benefits of Microsoft 365 Copilot in Outlook is its ability to streamline email management. From suggesting responses to categorising emails, Copilot helps users maintain an organised inbox. It can even schedule meetings and draft emails based on previous communications, reducing time spent on administrative tasks.

By managing our own communications more efficiently, we also help clients improve responsiveness and organisation in their inboxes.

Creative Assistance in PowerPoint and Word

Copilot can generate presentations, suggest layouts, and even populate slides with relevant data in PowerPoint. In Word, it drafts content, summarises reports, and helps with editing. This AI-enhanced support allows even complex presentations or documents to be created quickly, maintaining high-quality results.

Improved Compliance and Security

Microsoft Copilot adheres to high standards for data protection and compliance, helping users maintain organisational policies. For instance, Copilot in Word or Excel can flag sensitive data or potential compliance issues, supporting adherence to data regulations and enhancing security.

Our team values these added compliance features, as they provide our clients with greater peace of mind in protecting their data.

How to Maximise the Benefits of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Here are some ways to make the most of  Copilot’s capabilities for your business:

Customised Automation

Tailoring Copilot’s automation features to specific needs helps save time on repetitive tasks, enabling focus on strategic goals.

Data-Driven Decisions

Using Copilot for data analysis in Excel allows businesses to make informed decisions based on reliable, real-time insights.

Seamless Collaboration

With Copilot in Teams, you can maintain smooth communication and project coordination, driving alignment and efficiency.

Efficient Content Creation

Copilot’s assistance in PowerPoint and Word means high-quality content can be generated faster, meeting deadlines while ensuring a professional standard.

 

Conclusion

The benefits of Microsoft Copilot extend far beyond simple automation. Copilot is a comprehensive AI tool that streamlines workflows, enhances collaboration, and powers data-driven decisions, enabling businesses to work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence.

Whether automating routine tasks, analysing data, or improving collaboration, Microsoft Copilot is redefining productivity in the modern workplace. By embedding Copilot into various Microsoft packages, Emerge Digital helps businesses unlock their full potential, allowing them to outpace competitors, make better decisions, and elevate their operations.

 

About Us

Emerge Digital is a technology and digital innovation company and Managed Services Provider (MSP) dedicated to igniting tech-powered growth for SMEs.

If you’re ready to experience the benefits of Microsoft 365 Copilot and boost productivity in your organisation, contact us to learn more about how tailored solutions can support your unique needs.

 

1. Preparing Your People

Understanding how to get ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot starts with preparing your employees. Without proper training, teams may underuse it or struggle to understand how it fits into their existing workflows. But here’s the catch: general training isn’t enough. Different teams have different needs, and training must be tailored to specific roles.

Develop Role-Specific Use Cases

Each department will interact with Copilot in unique ways. Whether it’s drafting documents automatically for HR or generating data insights for marketing, someone needs to work with each team to map out where Copilot will add the most value.

Championing Early Adopters

Identifying key employees to lead the charge can make a huge difference in adoption rates. These early adopters will help guide their teams through the process, but they’ll need ongoing support to succeed.

 

2. Organising Your Data for AI Efficiency

Copilot relies on well-structured, accessible data. If your content is disorganised, filled with outdated files, or scattered across poorly structured systems, Copilot’s effectiveness will be severely limited. Ensuring your digital environment is prepared requires much more than a quick cleanup.

Data Clean-Up and Organisation

Are you prepared to go through every folder in SharePoint and OneDrive to clear out redundant or outdated content? Probably not. But this is essential for Copilot to function properly. ROT (redundant, outdated, and trivial) content will result in inaccurate responses from Copilot.

Metadata and Taxonomy Setup

Structuring your content with logical tags and categories ensures that Copilot retrieves the right information at the right time. This might sound straightforward, but getting it right can be a big undertaking.

It’s one thing to know your data needs organising – quite another to actually do it. This is where having experts on hand to manage the process becomes invaluable. We can audit, clean, and restructure your data for optimal AI performance, so you don’t have to worry about it. Get in touch if you want to find out more about how we can get your business Copilot ready.

 

3. Securing Sensitive Data and Permissions

Copilot’s access to your company’s data can be incredibly powerful, but with that comes the responsibility of ensuring sensitive information is secure. Permissions must be set, access reviewed, and security protocols tightened – especially for remote or external users.

Regular Access Reviews

How often do you review who has access to sensitive documents or data? If it’s not regularly audited, there’s a good chance overexposed assets are creating security risks. Without frequent reviews, Copilot might surface confidential information to the wrong people.

Security Protocols and Multifactor Authentication (MFA)

Beyond access, protecting sensitive sites with MFA and conditional access policies adds a layer of security that’s crucial in today’s remote-working world. But implementing this requires not only technical know-how but ongoing oversight.

These are not tasks to delegate to your already busy IT team. Managing permissions, access controls, and implementing advanced security measures is something that should be left to specialists. By trusting us to handle this, you can rest assured that your data will be safe – and that Copilot will only retrieve what’s meant to be seen.

 

4. Tailored Training for Ongoing Success

Understanding how to get ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot doesn’t stop with the initial rollout. Employees need ongoing support as they adapt to Copilot’s capabilities. But organising continuous, department-specific training is a significant commitment—and your teams need more than a quick demo to get the most out of it.

Hands-On Training

Beyond the basics, each department requires practical training that aligns with their daily tasks. This isn’t something generic—you need a plan that walks employees through using Copilot within their unique workflows, whether it’s for finance, marketing, or operations.

Regular Feedback and Optimisation

As your team becomes more comfortable with Copilot, their needs will evolve. Regular feedback sessions allow us to adjust the tool’s implementation and uncover new use cases, ensuring Copilot continues to add value as your business grows.

Do you have the time and resources to plan, execute, and refine this level of training? We can develop and manage the entire process, ensuring that every team gets the training they need to thrive with Copilot.

 

5. Ongoing Optimisation and Expansion

Once Copilot is set up, that’s just the beginning. To fully capitalise on its capabilities, you’ll need to monitor its performance, refine its usage, and explore additional ways it can benefit your business.

Monitor and Optimise

Copilot’s usage reports provide insights into which teams are making the most of the tool – and where improvements can be made. But interpreting these reports and turning them into actionable strategies is time-consuming. That’s where we come in.

Expand Use Cases

Once your teams are comfortable, there’s no reason to limit Copilot’s role. We can help you identify new areas where AI can drive efficiency, from customer service to project management.

Customisation

If your business has specific needs, we can customise Copilot Studio plugins to tailor the experience further, ensuring Copilot works precisely how you need it to.

Why leave these opportunities untapped? By partnering with us, you’ll have experts on hand to continuously optimise your Copilot experience and identify new ways to leverage its power.

 

Ready to Get Started?

The path to understanding how to get ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot can seem overwhelming, but with the right support, it doesn’t have to be. Whether it’s managing data clean-up, securing sensitive information, or delivering ongoing training, we’re here to help every step of the way.

By working with us, you’re not just implementing a tool—you’re transforming the way your business operates, with experts ensuring everything runs smoothly from day one. Get in touch with us today and let’s get started on unlocking the full potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot for your organisation.

 

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Comparing the Differences of Microsoft’s Copilots

 

Microsoft Copilot

Price: Free

Availability: Available now on Windows 11, in the Microsoft Edge browser, via copilot.microsoft.com

Key Uses: Answering questions, summarising content, searching the internet, generating images

Summary: Microsoft Copilot, distinct from Copilot for 365, is a pioneering AI-powered chatbot by Microsoft, capitalising on advanced large language models to significantly enhance productivity, foster creativity, and simplify information comprehension through an intuitive chat interface. Initially introduced as Bing Chat in February 2023, it is seamlessly integrated within Microsoft Bing and Microsoft Edge, marking Microsoft’s strategic shift towards AI-driven assistance and serving as the successor to the phased-out Cortana.

Further embedding itself into the fabric of daily computing, Microsoft Copilot has been adeptly incorporated into Windows 11, offering users an enriched experience aimed at boosting their productivity and creativity. Whether seeking concrete answers, creative inspiration, or pragmatic solutions for an array of questions, projects, and tasks, Copilot stands as a testament to Microsoft’s commitment to leveraging AI technology to empower users in navigating and managing their digital environment more effectively. But what’s the different between this and Microsoft’s other Copilots?

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Price: £24.70 per user, per month (annual committment)

Availability: Available now for Business and Enterprise customers

Key Uses: Generate content in Word, create PowerPoint presentations, analyse data in Excel, draft emails in Outlook, generate meeting summaries in Teams.

Summary: Copilot for 365 directly enhances productivity within the Microsoft 365 suite by automating and simplifying tasks across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. It generates content, analyses data, designs presentations, manages emails, and facilitates collaboration, all through natural language commands. This tool streamlines document creation, spreadsheet analysis, and communication, enabling users to efficiently tackle complex projects and everyday tasks. Users must have a Business Standard, Business Premium, or E3/E5 subscription to use Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft Copilot Pro

Price: £19.00 per user, per month

Availability: Available now for Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscribers

Key Uses: Generate content in Word, create PowerPoint presentations, analyse data in Excel, draft emails in Outlook, generate meeting summaries in Teams.

Summary: Copilot Pro is a cross between Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot. It offers enhanced features over the free Copilot service and adds AI capabilities to the Microsoft 365 apps, but it’s designed for individuals, not businesses. It offers subscribers priority access to advanced AI models like GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo, ensuring faster response times and content creation, including AI-powered image creation with DALL-E 3. Designed to work in conjunction with a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription, Copilot Pro extends its capabilities to key Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote, enabling features like drafting and summarising documents in Word, generating outlines and designing slides in PowerPoint, managing emails in Outlook, and organising notes in OneNote. Additionally, subscribers receive 100 boosts per day for AI image creation, significantly enhancing their creative output​​​​. Here again, understanding what’s the difference between Microsoft’s Copilots, particularly Copilot Pro’s individual-focused approach versus the broader or business-centric versions, is crucial.

Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics 365

Price: Varies

Availability: Available now across various Dynamics 365 applications

Key Uses: Enhancing productivity and efficiency in customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), automating tasks, generating ideas, providing insights using natural language, and improving customer service and sales processes.

Copilot for Dynamics 365 represents a significant leap in leveraging AI to enrich employee experiences and streamline operations across CRM and ERP systems. It empowers employees to automate routine tasks, generate creative ideas, and derive insights using natural language, thereby focusing on high-value activities. For sales teams, it optimises seller productivity by enabling automation of sales processes and augmenting seller actions with AI-powered insights. In customer service, it offers capabilities like summarising cases and conversations, composing emails or chat responses, and providing quick access to knowledge base sources. Marketing teams benefit from AI-driven customer insights, segment suggestions, and content creation tools, enhancing the personalisation and efficiency of marketing campaigns. Additionally, it supports various operations such as field service, project management, finance, and supply chain management by providing AI-assisted insights and automations to streamline workflows, improve decision-making, and enhance customer engagement​​​​​​.

Copilot for Power Platform

Price: Free

Availability: Copilot is generally available in Power Apps, Power BI and Power Automate.

Key Uses: In Power Automate – build, edit, and extend workflows using natural language and get help from AI powered chat. In Power Apps – build enterprise-grade applications faster and more easily with generative AI. In Power BI – use AI to illuminate hidden patterns, opportunities, and anomalies in your data.

Summary: Copilot for Power Platform is an AI-powered assistant designed to facilitate the creation of intelligent apps within the Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem. By leveraging large language models, it accelerates the development process, enabling users to build apps, automate workflows, and create virtual agents through conversational inputs. For app development in Power Apps, Copilot simplifies the process from data integration to app publishing, offering suggestions based on your data and preferences, ensuring that applications are both efficient and aligned with your business needs. Importantly, Copilot operates within a secure environment, ensuring that data and information are processed locally and in accordance with Microsoft’s responsible AI principles.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Price: Unconfirmed.

Availability: Currently available in an Early Access Program for commercial customers.

Key Uses: Incident response, threat hunting, intelligence gathering, posture management, security reporting.

Summary: Microsoft Security Copilot is a generative AI-powered security solution designed to enhance the efficiency and capabilities of security professionals. It operates at machine speed and scale, providing a natural language, assistive copilot experience for a wide range of security scenarios including incident response, threat hunting, and security posture management. Security Copilot leverages OpenAI architecture and security-specific plugins to generate responses, offering wide visibility into threats and the opportunity to extend its functionalities. It integrates with Microsoft’s security portfolio products such as Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel, and Microsoft Intune, as well as with third-party services like ServiceNow. The solution is focused on improving security outcomes while adhering to responsible AI principles​​​​.

GitHub Copilot

Price: From £7.60 per user, per month (with annual commitment)

Availability: Available now for individual developers and businesses

Key Uses: Code suggestions, function generation, test acceleration, security vulnerability identification

Summary: GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered coding assistant that supports a multitude of programming tasks across various languages and IDEs. It is designed to enhance developer productivity by offering code completions, generating function and line suggestions, and providing chat and security vulnerability filtering. For individual developers, Copilot is priced at approximately £7.60 per month (or £76 annually), offering a 30-day free trial. The Business plan, targeted at organizational use, stands at approximately £14.40 per user per month, including advanced features such as chat support in IDE, CLI assistance, and IP indemnity, among others. An Enterprise option is also available at approximately £29.60 per user per month, requiring a GitHub Enterprise Cloud subscription, and includes personalized chat features, documentation search and summarization, and enhanced code review capabilities. GitHub Copilot is accessible for verified students, teachers, and open-source project maintainers at no cost, promoting educational and community development use.

 

Conclusion

Understanding the diversity and specificity of the Microsoft’s different Copilot offerings reveals a strategic vision aimed at leveraging AI to enhance productivity, creativity, and security across a broad spectrum of professional and personal computing environments. From the freely accessible Microsoft Copilot, which introduces AI-powered chat capabilities into daily computing via Windows 11 and Microsoft Edge, to 365 Copilot’s business-oriented enhancements for Microsoft 365 suite users, each variant is designed with distinct use cases and user bases in mind. Copilot Pro bridges these worlds, offering advanced AI features for individual Microsoft 365 subscribers, while GitHub Copilot targets developers with AI-assisted coding. Furthermore, specialized versions like Copilot for Dynamics 365 and Copilot for Power Platform cater to specific professional needs in CRM, ERP, and app development, respectively. Microsoft Security Copilot’s focus on cybersecurity underscores the importance of AI in safeguarding digital assets.

This comprehensive approach underscores Microsoft’s commitment to embedding AI across its product range, ensuring that whether one is coding, managing corporate resources, or simply browsing the web, there’s a Copilot designed to make the task more efficient and intuitive. Hopefully, you will now be able to understand the difference between Microsoft’s Copilots: a suite of tools poised to redefine our interaction with technology, tailored to meet diverse needs across the digital landscape.

 

About Emerge Digital

Emerge Digital is a technology and digital innovation business and Managed Services Provider (MSP) which provides solutions to SMEs that drive efficiency, competitiveness, and profit. Using comprehensive solutions, including outsourced IT support, cyber security, cloud infrastructure, and innovative technologies like process automation, data visualisation and AI – Emerge Digital enables businesses to invest in technology that supports them in achieving their goals.