Steps for Personalizing Your Workflow Using Microsoft Copilot

Quick Tips

To personalize workflow with Copilot, you need to get to grips with some of its underused tools.
Make sure you have a good microphone if you want to use Copilot’s voice chat capabilities.
Convert documents you want to upload to PDF so Copilot can read them.

Copilot can be a handy tool for generating ideas and quickly drafting content, but don’t sleep on its ability to tweak processes you’ve already created manually. You can give your entire workflow a solid boost as long as you know what you’re doing with Microsoft’s AI. That’s what we’ll help you with here – follow these steps to personalize workflow with Copilot so you get the most out of Microsoft’s powerful tool.

Step 1 – Use Voice Chat to Create Your Workflow

Most people use Copilot’s text-based chat system to personalize their workflows, which means they’re missing out on its surprisingly powerful voice-based tools. Here’s how to use them:

Step 1: Hit the “Microphone” icon, which you’ll find at the right side of the Copilot chat bar.

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Step 2: Once Copilot confirms that it’s listening, instruct it to create a workflow for a specific process you want to get down. Copilot will ask a bunch of follow-up questions. For instance, if you ask it to create a content writing workflow, it may follow up by asking if you need help with a specific topic or if you want a workflow for brainstorming ideas.

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Step 3: Talk back and forth with Copilot, asking it to expand on its recommendations where necessary, until you have a workflow with which you’re satisfied.

Step 2 – Upload Documents to Help

The more Copilot knows about your existing processes – or the work that you do – the better able it is to come up with a workflow personalized to you. That’s where document uploading comes in, which you can do as follows.

Step 1: Hit the “+” icon on the left of the Copilot chat bar and select “Upload” from the options.

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Step 2: Navigate through your files, find the document you wish to upload to Copilot, and hit the “Open” button. Note that you’re generally limited to PDFs, image files, and a handful of other file types – Copilot doesn’t accept Microsoft Word files yet. A quick conversion of a Word file to PDF helps there.

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Step 3: Use your queries to ask Copilot what the image displays and to improve on the workflow you have in the file.

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You can use this handy tool to have Copilot quickly analyze your workflows without the back-and-forth of talking to it. Ask for recommendations and you’ll get them, allowing you to personalize workflow with Copilot quickly.

Step 3 – Take Advantage of “Think Deeper”

If you feel like Copilot’s feedback is a little too surface-level, the “Think Deeper” option has you covered. That prompts Copilot to look at your workflow challenges from multiple angles, giving you more options for how you personalize.

Step 1: Hit the “Think Deeper” button you’ll find at the right side of the chat window. A selection of pre-made prompts pop up but you can type your own. You’ll know “Think Deeper” is activated because the button turns black.

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Step 2: Hit the “Enter” button and wait. “Think Deeper” causes Copilot to take several more seconds – sometimes even minutes – creating a workflow, rather than the near-instant feedback you get from a standard chat.