Exercise 2: Empower employees with an HR self-service agent

Modern HR departments are increasingly using Microsoft 365 Copilot to enhance employee support, streamline communication, and reduce administrative workload. Through a combination of custom-built Copilot agents and Microsoft’s prebuilt agents, HR teams can deliver faster, more accurate responses to employee inquiries while maintaining consistency with company policy.

For example, an HR department can build a custom agent that enables employees to instantly access information about benefits, promotions, relocation, and workplace policies without waiting for HR staff. Custom-built agents scan improve both service quality and operational efficiency.

Meanwhile, prebuilt Copilot agents like Researcher empower employees and HR professionals to gather and synthesize external insights to support informed decision-making. Together, these tools demonstrate how intelligent agents in Microsoft 365 can extend HR’s impact and foster a more connected, data-driven workplace.

[!TIP] The Introduction unit in this module reminded you of the four key elements of an effective prompt: Goal, Context, Sources, and Expectations. Keep these elements in mind as you create prompts in this exercise.

Scenario

In this exercise, you take on two roles—first as an HR Analyst who creates both an HR self-service agent and a Viva Engage announcement for the new agent, and then as an Adatum employee who is relocating to a new city following a recent promotion.

The employee uses the HR self-service agent to get answers about company policies, including the company’s relocation policy. The employee then uses the Researcher agent to investigate schools in the employee’s new city, in preparation for their relocation.

This exercise demonstrates how Copilot Chat can connect company data and web sources to support both internal operations and individual productivity.