Information retrieval with Copilot Studio Agents

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Posted on by AD-19090452-0

Hi everyone, i would like to create an Agent that retrieves information from a sharepoint database with nested files. The issue is that this sharepoint consists of many excel files(each with many work sheets) and a few powerpoint presentations. So it is not able to retrieve all the data and gives me wrong answers for the same. How can i fix this?

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MS.Ragavendar 4,001 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Information retrieval with Copilot Studio Agents

@AD-19090452-0,

The multiple excel files will having multiple sheets it will be challenging in-terms of indexing the key value pairs.

You can bring the data from the excel files into single file or single list ( Sharepoint) / table (dataverse) which can yield better results or the topics should be based on the file name, when the query is raised it has to hit the relevant excel file.

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AD-19090452-0 13 on at

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Thanks for your reply @MS.Ragavendar,

bringing the data into a single file will probably not work just due to the sheer number of excel files in the db. Would you have any recommendations for other approaches I could try?

Thank you so much!

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DAnny3211 132 on at

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Information retrieval with Copilot Studio Agents

Hi, Retrieving accurate information from a SharePoint repository with multiple nested Excel files and PowerPoint presentations can be challenging for Copilot Studio Agents, especially when the data is spread across many worksheets and formats. The agent’s ability to index and interpret content depends heavily on how structured and accessible the data is. Here are a few suggestions to improve retrieval accuracy without needing full consolidation: 1. **Use SharePoint Lists or Dataverse**: If possible, extract key data from the Excel files into a SharePoint List or Dataverse table. These sources are optimized for structured queries and work more reliably with Copilot Studio. 2. **Create a preprocessing flow**: Use Power Automate to scan the SharePoint folder, extract relevant data from each Excel worksheet, and store it in a centralized location (e.g., a summary Excel file or a database). This can be scheduled or triggered based on updates. 3. **Limit the scope of the agent’s knowledge**: Instead of indexing the entire SharePoint folder, define specific files or folders as knowledge sources. This helps reduce ambiguity and improves response precision. 4. **Use metadata tagging**: Add metadata to files (e.g., via SharePoint columns) to help the agent filter and locate relevant content more effectively. 5. **Documentation references**: - [Use SharePoint as a knowledge source in Copilot Studio](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot-studio/knowledge-sharepoint) - Power Automate for Excel and SharePoint integration Thanks and best regards, Daniele **Note: This response was prepared with support from Copilot to ensure clarity and completeness.**

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CU29091014-0 18 on at

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Information retrieval with Copilot Studio Agents

What you are trying to do just isnt going to work. The knowledge base feature (which I assume you are using as you have not stated) isnt capable of trawling through all those many workbooks and worksheets, finding a match and then augmenting a response.

What is the business problem you are trying to solve?

If you just want to search for a string value then you might want to look at Azure AI Search.

If there are certain key workbooks then maybe you could use Power Query or Gen 2 dataflows to bring them all together in the lakehouse and then use Fabric Data Agents to query them.

But it comes back to what you are trying to achieve here as that will guide the solution.

Also turning on a Microsoft 365 Copilot license significantly improves Copilot Studio agent search capabilities, enhancing response completeness and increasing max file size to 512mb. You'll be able to activate this.

Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/knowledge-copilot-studio#tenant-graph-grounding

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AD-19090452-0 13 on at

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hi CU29091014-0 ,

The business problem is to allow employees to query data from the excel sheets (singular or multiple at once) without having to manually go through them every time. I am open to anything, not just copilot, so any ideas are appreciated.

thank you very much

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CU29091014-0 18 on at

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Information retrieval with Copilot Studio Agents

Thanks for clarifying the business context. But I think you need to go a little further. Your employees query a search string and then what? Do they just want to know which file contains the string? Do they want some sort of RAG on top of their search?

So I cant claim to be an expert in Azure AI Search but this defo sounds like something more suited for that.

Asking copilot for the high level process I got this..

Create an Azure AI Search service in the Azure Portal.

Connect it to SharePoint Online using the built-in data connector to crawl all folders and files

Build an index and indexer to extract text from Excel files (including all worksheets).

(Optional) Add AI enrichment or semantic search for smarter results.

Create a custom connector in Power Platform that calls your Azure AI Search endpoint.

Use that connector in Copilot Studio so users can search SharePoint content through natural language prompts.

Not sure how technical you are but you will probably need someone with decent IT resource access and knowledge to get this done

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Romain The Low-Code... 1,155 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Information retrieval with Copilot Studio Agents

hello there :)

i m sorry if i miss some one who already proposed this but, i think, i didn't see the solution about using the abilty of copilot studio to go inside unstructured data (aka : excel) :

describe here : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/knowledge-unstructured-data

i personnaly use it with sharepoint excel file and having great result most of the time :)

it's a little tricky to enable, you have to use the little button, not the big one :)

if it s not resolving you'r problem. i suggest to try experimental model like GPT 5 Auto by changing it there

And if not enough, i will suggest as some one else said : time to try Azure AI Foundry or Azure AI search custom index :)

Hope this help you, if yes, please validate the answer, it's important for the community :)

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