Copilot Challenge

The 8th of April a team of Crayonites attended a hackathon! This is the invite from Microsoft:

Copilot Challenge – the ultimate Copilot Extension, Copilot Studio and Agent hackathon

This is not just any hackathon; it’s a competition where the most creative minds will battle it out to create the coolest, most business-relevant agents. Teams of 2 to 5 members from both partners and customers are invited to join the fun. Expect inspirational lightning talks and best practice sharing sessions to fuel your creativity. 
 
A carefully selected jury will decide top 3 winners, where the prices include, but not necessarily is limited to, eternal glory, praise, and honours for the winning teams! 
 
Elements the judges are looking for are categorized as follows: 

• Innovation 
  The most innovative solution.  
  Here, the originality and innovativeness of the solution are assessed, as well as how creatively the team has approached the problem. 

• Technical Execution 
  The most complete solution where the team has built a robust service that is created according to recommended practices.

• User Experience 
  The most user-friendly and intuitive solution. Key elements may include design, navigation, and how easy it is for users to understand, use, and interact with the solution.

• Business Value
  The solution that provides the greatest business value. This includes market potential, practical utility in an organization, and how well the team has thought through how the solution can be implemented in a real business context The ultimate Copilot Extension, Copilot Studio and Agent hackathon.

So, on to our challenge!

In our bustling Kristiansand office, even our high priest and strong leader, Christian, faces the occasional challenge with everyday tasks. Booking a parking space in the garage, for instance, has proven to be a bit of a struggle for him. Despite his leadership prowess, he often finds himself calling on his trusty disciple, Pål Andre, to handle this seemingly simple task. Inspired by this, we decided to tackle the Copilot Challenge – the ultimate Copilot Extension, Copilot Studio, and Agent hackathon. Our goal? To create a Copilot Agent that Christian can effortlessly call upon to book his parking space, ensuring he can focus on leading us to greater heights without any parking woes!

For our innovative solution, we decided to move away from our old system, which relied on SharePoint lists to manage all bookings. This system, complemented by a Power App, allowed users to easily book and view available parking spaces. However, to better support Christian and streamline the process, we’re developing a new solution as a Copilot Agent. This advanced system will feature voice and calling capabilities, making it even more user-friendly. Once completed, it will be deployed as an app, ensuring that booking a parking space is as simple as a quick voice command. 

For our new solution, we’re leveraging several powerful technologies to ensure seamless functionality:

• Copilot Studio: This platform is used to build the Copilot Agent, enabling voice and calling capabilities for effortless interaction.
  
• SharePoint List: This serves as the backbone for managing bookings, storing details such as user information, dates, and parking spaces.
  
• Power Automate: This tool is crucial for identifying available parking spaces and automating the booking process, ensuring users get their preferred spots efficiently.

By integrating these technologies, we’re creating a robust and user-friendly system that simplifies parking space management for everyone, especially our leader Christian.

The New AI Parking Assistant

Built in Copilot Studio and uses flows with Topics.

We have a Power Automate flow that triggered by a topic. Before the flow is initiated, we ask the user questions regarding the date and parking space they would like to book. It will only give you the free spaces on the requested date.

The app then confirms the booking, and add this to the SharePoint list that holds all the bookings.

The next user that books will not be able to book the already booked space.

Thats it! And Christian will once again be at peace..

This type of Agent can be used in several other situations! Just think how easy when frontline workers can just call, instead of trying to type things into an app on the phone or an iPad!