How to use a Connection Reference for a SharePoint (Any) Tool in Copilot Studio Agent (Solution)?

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Posted on by Patel Asutosh 27

Hi everyone,

I have created a solution and added a Copilot Studio agent to it.

For the knowledge source, I am using a SharePoint site URL stored in an Environment Variable, which is working as expected.

However, I'm facing an issue when adding the SharePoint tool. I can see my SharePoint connection, but I don't see any option to select or create a Connection Reference. My goal is to configure the tool using a Connection Reference so that the solution can be deployed across environments following ALM best practices.

Has anyone encountered this issue or knows how to configure the SharePoint tool with a Connection Reference?

If this scenario is supported, could you please share the steps or any Microsoft documentation/blog that explains the process?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Copilot Studio skills development

Autonomous agents

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Haque 3,836 on at

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HI @Patel Asutosh 27

My doubt is currently not all connectors or toools in Copilot fully support connection reference in the UI - and my doubt is deeper for SharePoint tools added directly in the agent designer. There is a super high chance SP tool may automatically use existing connection w/o exposing the Connection Reference selection steps.

Two ways to get out from here:

1. Let's create connection reference manually in in the solution. Let's remember to associate this connection reference in each environment for SP.

2. We can go for env. variable for dynamic URLs for SP site url to handle env. differences.

References:

Configure and manage connections

Add SharePoint as a knowledge source

Referenve my connector

I am sure some clues I tried to give. If these clues help to resolve the issue brought you by here, please don't forget to check the box Does this answer your question? At the same time, I am pretty sure you have liked the response!

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Sajeda_Sultana 207 on at

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Hi @Patel Asutosh 27,

I tested this as well. Although you can create a SharePoint Connection Reference inside a solution, the SharePoint tool in Copilot Studio doesn't provide an option to select or bind to that Connection Reference - it only lets you pick a Connection.

At the moment, this appears to be a product limitation rather than a configuration issue.

As a workaround, you can use a Power Automate cloud flow instead of the built-in SharePoint tool. Power Automate supports Connection References, so you can:

Create the SharePoint Connection Reference in your solution.

Build a cloud flow to perform the SharePoint operations (e.g., get files, read content, update documents).

Add the flow as an action/tool in Copilot Studio.

During solution import, map the Connection Reference to the appropriate SharePoint connection in the target environment.

For comparison, here's how Power Automate supports Connection References. As shown in the screenshot, Power Automate provides a "Change connection reference" option, whereas the **Copilot Studio SharePoint tool currently does not expose this capability.

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🏷️ For follow-ups @Sajeda_Sultana

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Haque 3,836 on at

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HI @Patel Asutosh 27,

I was just following up on this, were you able to resolve adding SharePoinre tool issue? Please let us know if any furhter assitance is need.

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