The M365 Copilot Field Guide is a set of 12 browser-readable HTML files published at www.kesslernity.com/guides. Each guide covers one Copilot feature. All are print-ready, A4, no login required.
You can deploy them in under an hour by pointing employees to the URL. Or you can embed them in SharePoint, pin them in Teams, or add a card to your Viva Connections dashboard — the options below cover each approach.
Describe a task — get the right Copilot tool. Useful when employees ask "which Copilot do I use for this?"
Symptom → cause → fix in a single table. Reduces IT tickets. The first thing to share when an employee says Copilot stopped working.
Chat, Outlook, Teams Meetings, Word/PowerPoint/Excel, Notebooks, Pages, Scheduled Prompts, Studio Agents, Prompt Hygiene, Context IQ.
No PDF, no account, no installation. Open the link and read. Print from browser for physical copies.
The options below go from fastest (one link, two minutes) to most integrated (Viva Connections dashboard card). All options use the same public URL — no files to transfer, no content to maintain.
| Method | Time | Skill needed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share the URL directly | 2 min | None | Immediate rollout — email, Teams message, or chat |
| Teams tab in a channel | 5 min | Channel owner | Copilot champions channel, IT support channel |
| SharePoint page with guide links | 20 min | SharePoint editor | Intranet homepage, digital workplace hub |
| SharePoint with guides hosted locally | 45 min | SharePoint admin | Restricted networks, air-gapped environments |
| Viva Connections dashboard card | 60 min | Viva Connections admin | Enterprise-wide rollout via Teams home screen |
Add a Website tab pointing to the Decision Map or the full series. Works in any channel where members are deploying or supporting Copilot — IT support, Copilot champions, a specific department.
Go to the Teams channel where you want to add the guide tab. This can be an existing channel — your IT support channel, a Copilot champions channel, or a department team.
Click the + icon next to the existing tabs at the top of the channel. Search for Website in the tab picker.
Tab name: Copilot Guides (or "Copilot Help" — your preference).
URL: https://www.kesslernity.com/guides/copilot-decision-map.html to start with the Decision Map, or https://www.kesslernity.com/guides for the full index.
Post a short message in the channel to let members know the tab is there. Employees who find the Decision Map once will return to it — it needs to be discoverable, not just available.
Add the Failure Triage sheet as a second tab: https://www.kesslernity.com/guides/copilot-failure-triage.html. Pin it in your IT support channel — it becomes the first thing agents check when an employee says Copilot stopped working.
Build a single SharePoint page that lists all 12 guides with a one-line description of each. Embed it in your digital workplace hub or intranet homepage. No files to upload — the links point directly to www.kesslernity.com/guides.
Go to the SharePoint site where you manage intranet content. Click New → Page. Choose a blank layout or a template with a title and body section.
Title: M365 Copilot Reference Guides.
Intro (example): "12 quick-reference guides for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Use the Decision Map if you're not sure which guide to open. Use the Failure Triage sheet when something isn't working."
Add a Quick Links web part to the page. Set the layout to List or Button. Add each guide as a link using the URLs from the guide list in this document.
Drag these two to the first positions in the Quick Links web part. They are the two guides employees reach for most often — reduce friction by making them the first thing visible.
Publish the page. Add it to your intranet navigation under a section like "Tools" or "AI & Copilot." If you use Viva Connections, this page can also be linked from the dashboard — see Option D below.
If your network blocks external URLs or you need the guides to be fully internal, download the HTML files and upload them to a SharePoint document library. They open directly in the browser — no SharePoint rendering issues since they are standalone self-contained HTML files.
Go to github.com/kesslernity/m365-copilot-field-guide. Click Code → Download ZIP. Extract the 12 HTML files.
Create a dedicated library named Copilot Field Guide. Set permissions so all employees have read access. Do not require login for document access if your intranet allows authenticated browsing.
Upload the files directly to the library root. SharePoint serves HTML files correctly when opened via their direct URL — employees click the file and it opens in browser, not in SharePoint's preview pane.
Right-click each uploaded file → Copy link. Use these internal URLs in your SharePoint intranet page (Option B above) instead of the www.kesslernity.com/guides URLs.
If you host locally, you own the update cycle. The guides at www.kesslernity.com/guides are updated when Microsoft changes features. Download fresh copies after major M365 Copilot releases (typically March and September). The file names remain stable — replace the existing files in the library to update.
Add a card to the Viva Connections dashboard that links to the Decision Map. The dashboard appears on the Teams home screen for all employees — this is the highest-visibility placement available in M365 without custom development.
Go to your SharePoint home site → Viva Connections → Edit dashboard. You need the SharePoint admin or Viva Connections admin role.
Click + Add a card → Card Designer. This lets you create a card with a custom title, description, icon, and link without any development work.
Title: Copilot Field Guide
Description: Which Copilot do I use? Start here.
Icon: use the Copilot or document icon from the built-in set.
Card action → Link: https://www.kesslernity.com/guides/copilot-decision-map.html
Save and publish the dashboard. Open Teams on desktop and mobile and confirm the card appears on the Viva Connections home screen. Cards render differently on mobile — check that the description truncates cleanly.
Copy and adapt this message for your Teams announcement channel or all-staff email. Keep it short — employees read the first two lines and ignore the rest.
Subject: Copilot reference guides — bookmark these two links We've added a set of reference guides for Microsoft 365 Copilot to [your intranet page / the #copilot-help channel / the Copilot Guides tab]. Start with these two: → Decision Map — tells you which Copilot tool to use for your task [your URL or www.kesslernity.com/guides/copilot-decision-map.html] → Failure Triage — if Copilot isn't working, this is why (and how to fix it) [your URL or www.kesslernity.com/guides/copilot-failure-triage.html] Ten more guides cover specific features: Outlook, Teams Meetings, Office apps, Notebooks, Studio Agents, and more. All browser-readable, no login required. Questions? Reply here or contact [your IT helpdesk].
Pin the Failure Triage sheet in your IT support channel and add it to your helpdesk first-response checklist. The six most common Copilot problems — wrong licence tier, wrong toggle (Web vs Work), email cap hit, file not indexed, SharePoint permission gap, session lapsed — are all in that one table. Agents who check it first resolve faster.
As of the June 16, 2026 GA wave, several Copilot capabilities — including Copilot Cowork (now generally available worldwide) — bill on usage through a consumption currency called Copilot Credits. Pay-as-you-go is $0.01 per credit; a commit-for-discount plan ("P3") is available. This sits on top of the per-seat M365 Copilot licence: the licence is the access gate, Credits are the runtime meter. The good news for admins is that it ships off by default and with tenant-level controls.
| Control | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Cost Management dashboard | M365 admin center | Reports Copilot Credit consumption by user, group, and feature. Your single view of what usage is costing. |
| Spending limits | M365 admin center | Hard caps at tenant, group, or individual user level — so one team or user can't run up the bill. |
| Usage alerts | M365 admin center | Threshold alerts at tenant / group / user level. Get notified before a limit is reached, not after. |
| Off by default | Tenant setting | Usage-based billing is disabled until an admin turns it on. Nothing meters until you opt in. |
Metered in Copilot Credits: Copilot Cowork; custom and third-party agents (Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, or anything calling the raw Work IQ APIs) that ground in your M365 data via Work IQ — now GA; Dynamics 365 first-party agents; and unlicensed M365 Copilot Chat usage.
Covered by the existing licence (not separately metered): Microsoft's pre-built Copilot agents used under an assigned M365 Copilot seat. The Credits meter applies to the build-your-own and consumption layers, not to the in-box agents.
Agent 365 ($15/user/month) is the identity and governance layer — each agent gets an Entra Agent ID, and you manage and secure agents from one control plane. It does not include agent runtime: the compute an agent consumes is billed separately via Copilot Credits (or Microsoft Foundry tokens for Foundry-built agents). Budget the $15 seat and the consumption meter as two separate lines. Use the Copilot agent cost model for budget planning.
1. Set a tenant-level spending limit first. 2. Add group/user limits for pilot teams. 3. Configure usage alerts below each limit. 4. Open the Cost Management dashboard and confirm baseline reporting. 5. Note the Frontier grace period — tenants with a Cowork Frontier user (Mar 30 – Jun 16, 2026) are not billed for Cowork usage until July 1, 2026. Use that window to set limits before the meter starts.
Group and team-level cost reporting is now rolling out: a dashboard for managers with five or more reports, analysts, and global admins showing team Copilot Credit use. A preview Viva Insights view for GitHub Copilot spend and usage is progressing on the same access model (Roadmap 566470). Domain exclusion for web grounding is now generally available, letting admins block specific domains from Copilot web results. The Copilot Prompt Gallery reached GA for tenant-wide prompt publishing (Roadmap 486695), and Organization Prompts (admin-curated prompts surfaced in Chat suggestions and the Prompt Gallery) are rolling out. Organizational Messages for hybrid-joined devices (both AD and Entra ID) rolled out in June. A Brand Kit Picker and a branded footer in the M365 Copilot app both surface admin-approved brand assets to users. Departed-user content workflows for user-owned Loop workspaces reached GA (Roadmap 421612). Two Copilot Studio credential-safety previews landed: block maker-provided credentials for AI agents (Roadmap 566997) and detect credential oversharing at publish/share time (Roadmap 566873). From July 2, 2026, Copilot Studio and agent roadmap updates now publish exclusively to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. Release Planner is no longer the source of truth.
The public guides use generic Microsoft admin references and Kesslernity branding. For a version that fits your internal environment, Kesslernity can produce a customised set with:
Reach out at kesslernity.com to discuss scope and timing.