Table of Contents
Introduction
I am currently in the first phase of a new project, where I am writing a technical concept document. Firstly, I gathered all relevant information about the current technical readiness level. Secondly, I worked with the customer to define the objective. I captured all the information on a whiteboard, mostly with post-its, because it helps to see the overall picture. Now that the overall structure for the concept is defined, I need to write the actual document that describes the topics in detail. As technical concept documents involve describing the technology involved, I decided to try using Copilot for Microsoft 365 to improve my efficiency.
This blog post is part of my Blog series regarding Copilot for Microsoft 365. Here you can find a list of my discovered use-cases.
Draft with Copilot in Word
The draft feature is accessible in both Word online and the standard App for Windows or Mac. If your license has just been activated, it is recommended that you use the Web version as activation in the standard App may take some time. To access the feature, click on an empty line in the document or press ‘ALT + I’:
This is just an example prompt:
This is the initial output. You may approve it or refine the draft by providing Copilot with more prompts:
Clicking on the < on top left of the prompt you get the commands to
- keep the draft
- recreate the draft
- delete the draft
- optimize the draft with additional prompts
Draft based on a document in Word with Copilot
To further enhance the outcome, consider referencing a related document:
The document can be located in either your OneDrive account or SharePoint. You can reference PowerPoint presentations or Word files. Initially, I attempted to add a link to a OneNote page here, but it did not work. You can add up to three documents for Copilot to work with. Simply type the name of the document, and it will search all files to which you have access.
Then, you can add your prompts and let it generate the next draft:
This did not work -> unfurtunately I do not get insights about why it did not work 🙁
I also tried the function in the Word web application, but encountered the same error.
Although the function sounds promising, according to some Microsoft Techcommunity articles, this feature is currently not working:
The “Reference a file” feature not working as documented – Microsoft Community Hub
Might be cool in the future to improve the quality of the generated texts.
Access Copilot in Word while working on a document
In addition to the drafting function, you can access the normal Copilot to gather important information for your writing. Simply click on the Copilot icon in the upper right corner and the sidebar will expand, similar to your Edge browser. Then, you can ask Copilot to gather information for you:
The result is shown in the side pane:
This reduces the need to switch between your document and your browser, which can be distracting 😉
Conclusion
The drafting feature worked well for my specific use case of creating a technical concept document for a Microsoft 365 migration project. It provided concise summaries of the technologies I needed to describe. However, the tool’s efficiency will depend heavily on the specific use case. During my test, I discovered some limitations of the new feature. For example, the file reference function is currently not functioning.
Overall, the function improved the speed of writing the concept document. I plan to use this feature more frequently in the future when writing documents.
Hope you enjoyed this article! Stay tuned for more articles regarding Copilot for Microsoft 365.