Copilot Studio Trial License – Environments Not Visible & Tools/Knowledge Disabled (Worked Earlier)

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Posted on by CU20090407-0

Hi all,

I’m facing some issues with Copilot Studio related to licensing and environment access, and I’m trying to understand whether this is expected behavior or a recent change.

Setup

I have two accounts in the same tenant:

Account A (Service Account)
- Has M365 Copilot license
- Works perfectly:
  - All environments visible
  - Can access Tools, Knowledge, etc.
  - New Copilot Studio UI
Account B (My account)
- Has Copilot Studio viral trial enabled
- Issues started since yesterday (was working fine before)

Issue 1: Environments not visible in Copilot Studio

In Copilot Studio → Environment selector:
- Only shows a Teams-based environment (Dataverse for Teams)
- Does NOT show other environments
However:
- Same environments are visible in:
  - Power Apps
  - Power Automate
- If I paste the environment URL directly, it opens successfully

So access exists, but it’s not listed in the dropdown.

Issue 2: Tools & Knowledge not accessible

Inside an agent:

Only Topics tab is available
Knowledge and Tools tabs are disabled

Message shown:

“Upgrade your license to start using tools”

When I click Start trial:
- It says trial is already enabled

Issue 3: Different UI experience

Trial account shows older Copilot Studio UI
Licensed account shows new UI

Observations

Same tenant, same environments, same roles
Issue only in Copilot Studio (not Power Apps / Automate)
Direct environment URL works
Everything was working fine until yesterday

Questions

Is this expected behavior for Copilot Studio trial (viral) now?
Are:
- Tools
- Knowledge
- Non-Teams environments
  restricted for trial users?
Has there been a recent licensing enforcement or rollout change?
Why does:
- Direct URL access work
- But environment not show in dropdown?
Is the trial → “already enabled” loop a known issue?

I want to know whether:

This is a license limitation
Or a bug / rollout issue

Any insights or confirmations would really help. Thank you in advance!

Categories:

Building Copilot Studio chatbots in Microsoft Teams

Bot administration

Publish & channel management

General topics

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André Arnaud de Cal... 544 on at

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Hi,

As far as I know, there is no limitation on the tools when using a trial license. Can you verify if the trial license expired?

The environments visible are based on user permissions granted on each individual environment.

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Haque 1,758 on at

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Hi @CU20090407-0,

Do you see this message when you try to open up a Agent for edit? It happened to me once I extended too.

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CU20090407-0 18 on at

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Hi @Haque & @André Arnaud de Calavon ,

Thanks for your response!

1. I can confirm that the trial license has not expired and is valid.

2. The account involved has the access to the environments with Env. Maker role. Also validated by the fact that its visible in the environments dropdown in Power Automate & Power Apps

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Sayali Microsoft Employee on at

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Hello CU20090407-0 ,

This issue is most likely related to recent licensing enforcement affecting the Copilot Studio Viral Trial rather than a permissions or environment access problem.
Although Account B still shows the trial as enabled and has full access to environments in Power Apps and Power Automate, Copilot Studio appears to no longer recognize the Viral Trial license as a valid authoring entitlement. Due to this:

Only the Dataverse for Teams environment is visible in the Copilot Studio environment dropdown

Knowledge and Tools tabs are disabled inside the agent

Banner prompts users to “Upgrade your license to start using tools”

Clicking Start Trial results in a loop stating the trial is already enabled

The account is shown the older Copilot Studio UI, while licensed users see the new experience

Direct environment URLs continue to work because those rely on Power Platform environment permissions, whereas the Copilot Studio dropdown and feature access are filtered based on Copilot Studio license entitlements.

This aligns with recent reports that the Microsoft Copilot Studio Viral Trial SKU may no longer be fully accepted for agent authoring, requiring either:

A valid Copilot Studio User License, or

Configuration of the user as a Copilot Studio Author via Power Platform tenant settings

the behavior is consistent with a licensing entitlement change rather than an environment access or security role issue.

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CU20090407-0 18 on at

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Hi @Sayali,

Thank you for the detailed response!

I understand this might be a license enforcement issue. Could you share references or articles if any which are published regarding these changes to validate the noted issues.

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