Business Central5 min read Published on: 14 Oct 2024

A Comprehensive Guide to Using Microsoft Copilot in Business Central

  1. Home
  2. Blog
  3. Microsoft Copilot in Business Central

Business Central helps you to automate repetitive tasks by introducing artificial intelligence into its workflows. At the focal point of this AI implementation is Microsoft Copilot, a powerful AI assistant designed to enhance your productivity, automate tasks, and streamline your complex business processes. By integrating with Business Central, Copilot enhances the platform's capability to seamlessly manage your entire operation, from sales and finance to customer service & support.

In the following sections, our business central consultants can help you understand what Copilot is, how to use it, and how it allows businesses to work smarter using its features.

How to use Microsoft Copilot in Business Central?

Microsoft Copilot automates your time-consuming processes, predicts trends, anticipates your needs and provides insights from your data. Built on Microsoft AI, it uses machine learning and natural language processing to help you interact with ease and help to make informed decisions. Following are areas where Copilot is utilized:

  • Chat with Copilot using natural language and get quick responses to your questions.
  • Generate engaging product description content for users to edit and improve.
  • Coilot automates repetitive tasks to help you focus on business.
  • Copilot can fill in data fields automatically, reducing errors and accelerating the data entry process.
  • Copilot analyzes data, including financial reports, tracks inventory levels, and assesses customer behavior.
  • Getting real-time, data-driven recommendations to help decision-makers.
  • Copilot forecasts outcomes and identifies opportunities for optimization.
  • Predicts sales and inventory levels for weekly/monthly updates.
  • Based on historical transactions, Copilot can help you predict late payments.

How to activate AI capabilities & Copilot in Business Central?

Prerequisites:

  • You're using Business Central online & you're an administrator.

Allow data movement across geographies:

  • If the "Allow data movement" toggle appears on the Copilot & AI capabilities page, it represents that your environment is in a different location from Azure OpenAI Service.
  • To enable Copilot, enable the allow data movement option.

Activating Copilot Features:

  • Search Copilot & AI capabilities in Business Central.
  • The page lists all the available Copilot and AI-related features and their current status. You can activate/deactivate features based on needs.

Granting User Access:

  • Copilot and AI capabilities can provide functionality designed for all users across your organization or tailored specifically for certain user roles.
  • Most AI capabilities use access control through permissions managed within Business Central's permission system.

How to build your own Copilot?

Develop your Copilot using Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, and Microsoft Cloud technologies to get personalized, conversational AI experiences. It can integrate company data, retrieve real-time information from external APIs, and embed it within apps. There are a couple of ways to develop your Copilot include:

Azure AI Studio:

Use Azure AI Studio to create custom conversational AI platforms by integrating your data with Azure AI Search and Azure OpenAI models. It enables natural language interactions with your company data, simplifying tasks and improving search efficiency. Azure AI Studio helps you analyze large language model outputs and organize prompt components to enhance performance.

Microsoft Copilot Studio:

Microsoft Copilot Studio enhances Microsoft 365 Copilot by helping you create custom Copilot solutions tailored to your data. This low-code tool facilitates the development of advanced AI-driven chatbots and GPTs that can manage various interactions, from simple inquiries to complex issue resolutions. It integrates seamlessly across websites, mobile apps, Facebook, and Microsoft Teams.

Where can I find the latest news on Copilot for Business Central?

To stay updated on recent updates of Copilot, you can check the release plans, which explain the latest updates & features across Business Central, including Copilot. The 2024 release wave 2 for Business Central highlights sales order creation through natural language, GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio code, enhanced application metadata, and more. To learn more, visit our article about the new features planned for Business Central in the 2024 release wave 2.

How does Copilot ensure AI safety?

Microsoft Copilot emphasizes AI safety by protecting your data and ensuring the usage of responsible AI technology. Operating from the secure Microsoft Azure cloud, Copilot adheres to Microsoft’s Responsible AI standards. It maintains data control and privacy by using your data for specified tasks and not sharing it with third parties without your explicit permission. Data encryption is enforced at rest and in transit using industry-standard protocols like TLS. Strict security protocols manage your data that crosses through Microsoft’s Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Azure.

Copilot also follows regulatory standards, ensuring compliance with international & local laws, and uses security measures, including multifactor authentication. It uses advanced content filtering and abuse monitoring to prevent harmful content and includes protections against prompt injection attacks, maintaining the integrity & appropriateness of AI interactions. Also, Copilot suggests you manually review & measure accuracy to verify AI-generated content through built-in guidelines, promoting responsible AI use.

How does Copilot help in bank reconciliation?

  • Copilot uses AI to review unmatched transactions and identify additional matches based on dates, amounts, and descriptions, such as reconciling a single payment with multiple ledger entries.
  • For bank transactions that remain unmatched, Copilot analyzes the transaction description and compares it with G/L account names to suggest the most appropriate account for posting.

Is Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Central different from Copilot for Microsoft 365?

AI Copilot helps you streamline different tasks across various systems. Copilot for Microsoft 365 connects with productivity tools like Microsoft Teams. Excel, Word & PowerPoint to automate tasks, improve workflows, and increase collaboration. Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central helps you with business-specific tasks such as accounting, finance, sales, and operations.

Visit About Copilot in Business Central to get more insights about how Copilot empowers you to improve creativity and save time by using AI tools.

From automating manual tasks to helping with complex business operations, Copilot helps to run your business efficiently. By configuring individual features and abiding by the mandates set for responsible AI standards, Copilot in Business Central assists in extending Business Central ERP capabilities and unlocking its full potential! Explore our Business Central services to leverage Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Central & elevate your business operations.