Overview
During the recent Calgary YYC Microsoft 365 User Group Community Day, I had the opportunity to attend a session focused on Microsoft’s Copilot for the Power Platform, which encompasses Power Automate and Power Apps.
Interestingly, I discovered that this Copilot preview is available for free, a fact previously unknown to me. In Canada, you may need to adjust settings to use this feature as described in this article. In the United States, the feature is already turned on.
The below steps have been gathered from various Microsoft articles and put into one easy to follow article.
Important to note, some Microsoft articles say Copilot preview won’t work for Canadian Tenants.
From my experience, following the steps here I successfully activated it for two different Canadian tenants.
What’s included in the Power Platform
The Copilot for the Power Platform include the following apps. Some of the apps have different requirements, this article enables the preview for Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Pages.
- Microsoft Power Apps
- Microsoft Power Automate
- Microsoft Powe BI (Additional requirements for Copilot not covered in this article)
- Microsoft Power Pages
Some prerequisites for the AI features according to Microsoft
- Your environment must be in the United States region. – (Works in Canada when you follow the steps in this article)
- Your account must have English (United States) as the browser language.
- Have a Microsoft Dataverse database in your environment.
Follow these steps to enable Copilot for the Power Platform for your tenant.
The Power Platform enables Copilot by default for this preview. To disable it, you need to have administrator access.
Let’s make sure its enabled.
Follow these steps to enable Copilot for your environment.
- Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
- In the left-side navigation pane Environment.
- Select the environment and on the command bar, select Settings.
- Select one of the following options:
- To turn it on, set the toggle to On for Copilot.
Should look like the below
Enable AI Builder for your environment to use the AI models or controls leveraging AI models.
- Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.
- In the admin center, go to Environments > [select an environment] > Settings > Product > Features.
- The Settings is at the top, the settings on the left is not environment specific. I find it confusing as well.
- Product > Features.
- On the Features settings page, under AI Builder, enable AI Builder preview models if not enabled
How data movement across regions works
This is where we discover Copilot can be turned on for Canada
When you use copilots and generative AI features, your inputs (prompts) and outputs (results) might move outside of your region to the location where the Azure OpenAI Service endpoint that supports these features is hosted. Microsoft does not use your data to train, retrain, or improve Azure OpenAI Service foundation models.
The following table describes when and how data can move across regions for copilots and generative AI features
| Region where your Power Platform or Dynamics 365 environment is hosted | Region where Azure OpenAI Service is hosted | Does data move across regions? | How to allow data to move across regions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia India United Kingdom United States |
Within the respective geographical region of your Power Platform or Dynamics 365 environment | No | No action required. Data doesn’t move across regions in this scenario. |
| Europe | Sweden or Switzerland | Yes* | No action required. Data doesn’t move outside the EU Data Boundary in this scenario.
Admins can clear the Move data across regions checkbox, if they want to. |
| France Germany Norway Switzerland |
Sweden or Switzerland | Yes | Complete the steps in Enable data movement across regions. |
| Asia Canada Japan South Africa South America South Korea United Arab Emirates |
United States | Yes | Complete the steps in Enable data movement across regions. |
Enable data movement across regions
If your data is in Canada, you must allow data to move between regions to use copilots and generative AI features. You need to agree to the terms in the Move data across regions checkbox in the Power Platform admin center.
- Sign in to the Power Platform admin center
- In the left side panel, select Environments.
- Select your environment.
- On the Generative AI features card, select Edit.
- Check the checkbox and click Save
Note of caution
After you consent to the terms of use, the status of Move data across regions field on the Generative AI features card shows Allowed. The environment enables copilots and generative AI features.
Once data is moved between regions, it cannot be reversed by unchecking the “Move data across regions” option. This option must be disabled before enabling data movement in your environment. Once data movement is enabled, it cannot be undone.
Verify Copilot is working in Power Automate and Power Apps
Once you follow all the steps in this article, you will see the following
When you open Power Automate, you will see the following
When you open Power Apps, you will see the following
Copilots and generative AI features that are available when you enable data movement across regions
The following table lists copilots and generative AI features that are available in Power Platform environments when the Move data across regions checkbox is selected.
More copilots and generative AI features will be available in the future.
| Product | Feature | Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamics 365 Customer Service | Copilot | Manage Copilot features in Customer Service |
| Microsoft Copilot Studio | Generative AI in copilots | AI-based copilot authoring overview and Configure data movement for Copilot Studio generative AI features outside the United States |
| Microsoft Dataverse | Excel to table for new makers | Upload an Excel file (preview) |
| Power Apps | Build apps through conversation | Build apps through conversation |
| Power Apps | Describe a new table | Describe the new table |
| Power Apps | Draft with Copilot | Draft with Copilot |
| Power Automate | Power Automate designer copilot | Get started with Copilot in cloud flows (preview) |
