Copilot Studio Agent Not Responding with Knowledge from Authenticated SharePoint Documents (Excel, PDF, Word)

Question

Hello Microsoft Community,

I’m working on a Copilot Studio agent that uses authenticated SharePoint document libraries (Excel, PDF, and Word files) as knowledge sources. The agent is configured with Microsoft Entra ID authentication and uses the “On sign in” topic trigger. Users can sign in successfully, but after authentication:

• The agent fails to retrieve or respond with answers based on the uploaded files.
• Files are correctly uploaded and accessible in SharePoint.
• Excel files contain structured data; PDF and DOCX files include formatted reference material relevant to expected questions.

I’ve verified that:

• Permissions are set correctly (both user and Copilot permissions to the SharePoint library).
• Files are marked as available for Copilot knowledge ingestion.
• Authentication flow completes without errors.

Despite this, Copilot returns “I don’t know” or generic responses, ignoring the uploaded knowledge base content.

What I need help with:

• Is there a specific configuration or known limitation when using Excel, PDF, or Word files as knowledge sources with authenticated users?
• Are there additional steps required to make these file types usable by the Copilot agent post-authentication?

Any guidance or examples of successful configurations using Excel, PDF, or DOCX in this scenario would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

Good day!

Welcome to Microsoft Community. Thank you for sharing your concern with us today and we hope that all is well. I understand you're facing issues with your Copilot Studio agent not responding with knowledge from authenticated SharePoint documents. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot the problem:

1. Ensure that the file formats (Excel, PDF, Word) you are using are supported by Copilot for knowledge ingestion.
2. Check if the content within the files is structured in a way that Copilot can understand and extract relevant information from.
3. Verify that the permissions for both users and Copilot are correctly set to access the SharePoint library where the files are stored.
4. Double-check that the authentication flow is completing without any errors to ensure that Copilot has the necessary access to the files.
5. Consider re-uploading the files to the SharePoint library to rule out any potential issues with the existing files.

Regards,

Fritz-Bald

Microsoft Community

Moderator

Answer 2

Hi Sarang Raut1,

I am following up on behalf of Fritz-Bald.

We have noticed that you have not replied to our last response. We would like to know if the issue you have raised to us is still on-going. If yes, please reply to the thread so we can continue troubleshooting your concern.

Thank you,

Jer B.

Moderator | Microsoft Community