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Unlocking Microsoft Teams Extensibility with a Custom Copilot Agent Using the Team AI Library

Unlocking Microsoft Teams Extensibility with a Custom Copilot Agent Using the Team AI Library

Microsoft Teams is not just a collaboration platform—it’s a hub for communication, productivity, and automation. As part of this extensibility, Custom Copilot Agents can significantly enhance the Teams experience by providing intelligent assistance, automating tasks, and enabling users to interact with various services seamlessly. In this blog post, we will explore how to build a Custom Copilot Agent for Teams using the Teams AI library, allowing you to leverage powerful AI capabilities to interact with users, process data, and automate workflows within Teams.

What is a Custom Copilot Agent?

A Custom Copilot Agent is an intelligent assistant built into Microsoft Teams that can help users with a variety of tasks, answer questions, automate repetitive processes, and enhance user productivity. These agents can be personalized based on organizational needs and can integrate with various data sources, APIs, and Microsoft 365 services to provide real-time assistance.

In Microsoft Teams, a copilot agent can assist with:

  • Managing tasks (e.g., project management, task assignments)
  • Information retrieval (e.g., pulling data from documents, reports, and knowledge bases)
  • Automating workflows (e.g., sending reminders, updating status reports)
  • Providing insights (e.g., data analysis, summarizing meetings)

The Teams AI library provides developers with the tools and models to build such intelligent agents, making it easier to incorporate natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) into your custom bot or assistant.

Why Build a Custom Copilot Agent?

Custom Copilot Agents can automate several tasks and improve collaboration by providing real-time assistance in Microsoft Teams. Here are some reasons why you should consider building one:

  1. Automate Repetitive Tasks: Copilot agents can handle mundane tasks such as scheduling, data entry, or status tracking, freeing up team members to focus on more strategic work.

  2. Enhance User Experience: With intelligent agents, users can interact with Teams more intuitively, retrieving and processing data using natural language.

  3. Real-time Insights: Copilot agents can provide live updates on projects, tasks, and organizational data, ensuring that users have the most up-to-date information.

  4. Seamless Integration with Microsoft 365: By leveraging the Teams AI library, custom copilot agents can interact with Microsoft Graph, SharePoint, OneDrive, and other Microsoft services to enhance collaboration and automate workflows.

How to Build a Custom Copilot Agent with the Teams AI Library

Creating a custom copilot agent involves several steps. Let’s walk through the process:

Step 1: Set Up Your Development Environment

Before you start developing a Custom Copilot Agent, ensure you have the right tools and environment:

  1. Install Teams Toolkit: Teams Toolkit simplifies the process of building, testing, and deploying Teams apps, including custom agents. Install the toolkit in Visual Studio Code for full functionality.

  2. Set Up a Microsoft 365 Developer Account: You’ll need a developer account to integrate with Microsoft Graph and other Microsoft services.

  3. Access the Teams AI Library: The Teams AI library provides the building blocks for integrating AI capabilities like NLP, machine learning, and more. You can find the library and its resources on GitHub or in the Microsoft documentation.

  4. Install Dependencies: Depending on the programming language you’re using (JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#), install the relevant dependencies to interact with the Teams API and Microsoft Graph.

Step 2: Define the Functionality of Your Copilot Agent

Determine the scope of your copilot agent. What tasks do you want it to automate? Some possible functionalities for a Custom Copilot Agent include:

  • Automating Task Management: The agent can help with creating, updating, and tracking tasks in Microsoft Planner.
  • Summarizing Meetings: Use AI to process meeting notes and summarize them for the user.
  • Knowledge Base Querying: Integrate with SharePoint or other data sources to enable the agent to answer questions related to documents, project updates, or customer support.
  • Providing Insights: Use AI models to analyze organizational data (e.g., sales reports, financial data) and provide insights directly within Teams.

Step 3: Build the Agent Using the Teams AI Library

Using the Teams AI library, you can integrate machine learning and natural language processing capabilities into your copilot agent. Here’s a simple example of how to build a question-answering bot using the Teams AI library:

const { TeamsActivityHandler, CardFactory } = require('botbuilder');
const { QnAMaker } = require('botbuilder-ai');

class CopilotAgent extends TeamsActivityHandler {
    constructor() {
        super();
        this.qnaMaker = new QnAMaker({
            knowledgeBaseId: process.env.QNA_KNOWLEDGE_BASE_ID,
            endpointKey: process.env.QNA_ENDPOINT_KEY,
            endpointHostName: process.env.QNA_ENDPOINT_HOST
        });

        // Listen for messages and respond using QnA Maker
        this.onMessage(async (context, next) => {
            const text = context.activity.text.trim();
            const response = await this.qnaMaker.getAnswers(context);

            if (response.length > 0) {
                await context.sendActivity(response[0].answer);
            } else {
                await context.sendActivity("Sorry, I don't have an answer to that question.");
            }

            await next();
        });
    }
}

module.exports.CopilotAgent = CopilotAgent;

In this code:

  • The QnAMaker service is used to enable the copilot agent to answer questions based on the knowledge base.
  • The bot listens for user messages and processes them through the QnA service, providing responses based on pre-configured answers.

Step 4: Integrate with Microsoft 365

One of the key advantages of building a Custom Copilot Agent is the ability to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft 365 services using Microsoft Graph API. For example, you can use Graph API to:

  • Manage Tasks: Retrieve or create tasks in Microsoft Planner.
  • Access SharePoint Documents: Retrieve or update documents stored in SharePoint.
  • Work with OneDrive: Query files stored in OneDrive and automate file management.

Here’s a simple example that retrieves calendar events using Microsoft Graph:

const { Client } = require('@microsoft/microsoft-graph-client');

async function getUserCalendarEvents(token) {
    const client = Client.init({
        authProvider: (done) => {
            done(null, token); // pass the access token
        }
    });

    const events = await client.api('/me/events').get();
    return events.value;
}

This function allows the copilot agent to query a user’s calendar and retrieve upcoming events, which could be used to remind users about meetings or deadlines.

Step 5: Deploy and Test Your Agent

Once your copilot agent is built, deploy it to a Microsoft Teams environment for testing. You can use Teams Toolkit to deploy and test the bot within your organization. You can also integrate it with Azure Bot Service to manage scaling, security, and compliance.

Step 6: Iterate and Improve

As with any AI-based system, your Custom Copilot Agent will benefit from ongoing improvements and feedback. Use analytics to track usage and improve the agent’s responses. You can also refine the AI models over time to make the agent smarter and more effective.

Conclusion

Creating a Custom Copilot Agent using the Teams AI library allows you to build intelligent assistants that can automate workflows, provide insights, and improve productivity within Microsoft Teams. With the power of the Teams Toolkit and integration with Microsoft 365 services, developers can easily build and deploy bots that bring AI capabilities to the Teams environment.

By following the steps outlined in this post, you can create a Custom Copilot Agent that helps users interact with their data, automate tasks, and streamline collaboration. So why wait? Start building your own Custom Copilot Agent today and take advantage of the powerful extensibility features offered by Microsoft Teams!