Exercise: Compare reporting results using Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word

  • 6 minutes

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word offers powerful tools for enhancing your documents with web-based information. One of its key features is the ability to use Copilot to access public data from the web, helping you incorporate up-to-date, relevant content directly into your Word documents. Unlike Copilot in other Microsoft applications, such as Excel or Loop, Copilot in Word is designed to assist with writing, summarizing, and refining content for your documents. While the level of detail Copilot provides can vary, it's an invaluable resource for quickly gathering insights and information to enhance your work.

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word provides two different means of accessing public web data:

  • You can ask Copilot to write a report about a certain topic - for example, what's the difference between a boiler versus furnace heating system. When you ask Copilot to write a report based on this type of question, it typically creates thorough, detailed content.
  • You can ask the same question within the Copilot pane. In this scenario, Copilot typically provides a shorter, more summarized answer to that same question. This feature is designed to supplement existing documents should you need to access public web data when doing so.

In this exercise, you're going to examine these two options. The purpose of this exercise is to show how Copilot in Word provides a different level of response depending on which modality you use - either in the Copilot pane or when creating a new document. This difference doesn't mean that one method is better than the other. Rather, each Copilot modality has its own place. The one you decide to use should depend on your reporting requirement. For example, when you use Copilot to create a new report, you probably need more detailed information. However, if you use Copilot to generate content that you can insert into an existing document, then you probably want smaller, more summarized chunks of information.

Exercise

As the Operations Manager at Adatum Corporation, you discovered the current boiler system that heats the company's 50-year-old office building needs significant repair, if not outright replacement. You feel that this situation may be the opportune time to convert your heating system from the existing boiler system to a more energy-efficient furnace system. However, you're not familiar with the differences between the two types of heating systems. As such, you want to investigate the situation and create a report that you can present to management.

Since you want to create a report, you naturally think of using Microsoft 365 Word. You heard that Copilot in Word can generate reports for you, but you have yet to use it. As such, you aren't sure what kind of reporting it provides. You want to take this opportunity to not only create your report but also investigate Copilot's reporting features. So here's your plan:

  • You previously identified several questions that you want Copilot to investigate regarding boiler versus furnace heating systems.
  • You plan to have Copilot create one report that covers all those questions.
  • You then plan to ask Copilot each of those questions individually so that you can see each response.
  • You can then compare the report that Copilot creates versus the individual answers that it generates for each question. In the latter scenario, you could insert each answer into a document to create your own report if you wish, or to supplement an existing document.

  1. If you have a Microsoft 365 tab open in your Microsoft Edge browser, then select it now; otherwise, open a new tab and enter the following URL: https://www.office.com

  2. With your plan in mind, you decide to first use Copilot in Word to create a report that addresses all your questions. On the Microsoft 365 home page, if Word appears in the left-hand navigation pane, then select it now and proceed to the next step. Otherwise, select the Apps icon, and on the Apps page, select Word.

  3. In Microsoft Word, open a blank document.

  4. In the Copilot window that appears at the top of the blank document, enter the following prompt and select the Generate button: I'm the Operations Manager for Adatum Corporation. We're thinking about possibly replacing our building's current boiler system with a furnace system. Write a report describing what type of boiler systems are used in most commercial buildings. Include considerations that I should take into account to change from an existing boiler system to a furnace system, the average cost of transitioning from a boiler system to a furnace system in a commercial two-story building built in the 1970s, whether changing from a boiler system to a furnace system will have any effect on our current air conditioning system, and the average defect rates for boiler systems versus furnace systems.

  5. Review the report that Copilot generated. Note the level of detail in each area of interest. Since you want to save this document for the next Use Case exercise, select the Keep it button on the Copilot tray and then save the document with a file name of your choice to your Microsoft - OneDrive folder.

    Important

    Make sure you save the report to your Microsoft - OneDrive folder. Doing so enables you to access the report in Copilot in PowerPoint in the next Use Case exercise.

  6. The prompt you entered to create the report included five requests. You now want to ask Copilot each of those five questions individually. On the Home tab in Word, select Copilot on the ribbon, which opens the Copilot pane.

  7. In the Copilot pane, in the prompt field at the bottom of the pane, enter the following question and then select the Send arrow: What type of boilers do most buildings use as part of their heating systems?

  8. Review the answer. While you can select the Insert button that appears below the response if you want to paste it into the document, for this training you're just going to select more prompts to see the responses that you receive. Enter separate prompts for each of the remaining four questions:

    • What considerations do I need to take into account to change from an existing boiler system to a furnace system in a commercial building?
    • What is an average cost for transitioning from a boiler system to a furnace system in a commercial two-story building built in the 1970s?
    • If we change from a boiler system to a furnace system, will it have any effect on our current air conditioning system?
    • What are the average defect rates for boiler systems versus furnace systems?

  9. Note how Copilot answered each of your questions, but it didn't insert any of the answers into the current document. While you can insert each answer into the document, it seems apparent that just having Copilot create the report is more efficient.

  10. However, how does the level of information for each reporting method compare to one another? Compare the level of information provided when Copilot in Word created a report versus the answers it provided when you asked the questions individually in the Copilot pane. What did you notice?

    When you ask Copilot to create a report, it usually provides richer responses that it organizes into an attractive looking report. Conversely, when you ask Copilot to answer questions individually in the Copilot pane, it doesn't return the level of detail as the report, although it does allow you to insert the responses into a document. However, doing so may require you to reformat the inserted answers to clean up any formatting issues.

Recap

At the start of this exercise, we said that each method has its own place. Hopefully, this exercise proved that point:

  • When you work in draft mode and ask Copilot to create a report, it accesses the public web one time only, and that's to respond to the initial draft request. For this reason, we included all the questions in the initial prompt. Once Copilot generates the report, you can modify it based on the existing content. However, if you need more information or updates from the web, you can still prompt Copilot to access external sources, though it may require more specific requests.
  • However, if you open a document, you can use the Copilot pane to ask Copilot more questions related to the document. This feature is designed to supplement content in an existing document. While Copilot doesn't automatically insert the answers into the document, you can insert them into it if you wish. This feature allows you to continue accessing public web data should you need to do so to update your document.

    However, as you saw in this exercise, the answers are usually summarized and not as detailed as the information provided by Copilot when it created the report. This feature is typically used to supplement an existing document, where you want to insert content that you feel may be missing. If you're supplementing an existing document with new web content, you may also consider using Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to answer your questions should you want more detailed information than the summarized information that Copilot in Word provides.