Exercise: Draft an email based on a technical report using Copilot in Outlook
Copilot in Outlook is an AI-powered tool that can help IT professionals save time and effort when drafting custom emails and email replies. With Copilot, you can quickly generate email drafts that Copilot tailors to your specific needs, without having to spend hours writing and editing them. Copilot can analyze your writing style and content and then suggest phrases and sentences that are relevant to the email you're composing. This functionality can save you time and effort by reducing the amount of time you spend thinking about what to write.
In this exercise, you use Copilot in Outlook to draft a new email based on the report that you updated in the prior exercise.
Important
Copilot scenarios in Outlook are only available on a user’s primary mailbox. They aren't available on a user’s archive mailbox, group mailboxes, or shared and delegate mailboxes that the user has access to. Microsoft only supports Copilot for Outlook on mailboxes hosted on Exchange Online. Additionally, Copilot in Outlook is only supported in Microsoft 365 work or school accounts and Microsoft accounts with specific email domains. It's supported both through Copilot for Microsoft 365 with your Microsoft Entra ID account, and Copilot Pro with your MSA account. Any Microsoft account using an account from a third-party email provider can still use Outlook, but won’t have access to the Copilot features in Outlook.
You can have Copilot create multiple drafts of the same email, each with a different tone and length. You can then navigate through the various drafts by selecting forward and backward arrows. Copilot tells you which draft you're on, such as 2 of 5. As such, you can select the forward or backward arrow to quickly return to a particular version.
As you review a generated draft, remember to keep in mind the following best practices that you learned in earlier training:
- Note the salutation at the start (Dear/Hello/Hi there, etc.) and the complementary close at the end (Sincerely/Best regards/Thank you, etc.). Are they in the proper tone for the target audience and the type of message that you want to send?
- Note the overall tone of the message. Is it too casual, too formal, or too direct for the type of email that you want?
- Note the length of the message. Is it too short, where it doesn't explain things in enough detail? Or does it continue on for too long, explaining items in too much detail? And is the length appropriate for the target audience?
- Does the message explain items in terms that are too simplistic or complicated given the target audience?
Exercise
In the prior exercise, you took on the role of Trey Research's lead consultant who is responsible for managing the installation of a VPN in Fabrikam's corporate network. In that exercise, you downloaded a report titled Trey Research - VPN Technical Overview.docx, which you then updated using Copilot in Word.
In this exercise, you continue in that role. With your report now finalized, you're ready to schedule a meeting with Fabrikam's IT staff to present the findings from the report. Fabrikam is new to the world of VPNs, so you plan to use this meeting to educate them on VPNs before you start the installation. You plan to use Copilot in Outlook to create an email to Fabrikam's IT staff to discuss this upcoming meeting. You also want to use the email to prepare the staff for the meeting by summarizing the findings of the report. Perform the following steps to create the email using Copilot in Outlook:
In Microsoft 365, open Outlook.
Open a New email.
On the Message tab that opens, select Copilot in the ribbon. In the drop-down menu that appears, select Draft with Copilot.
In the body of the message, a Draft with Copilot window appears. Below the What do you want this email to say? message is a Generation options icon. Select this icon to see the options that Copilot provides when creating an email.
In the drop-down menu that appears, you see that you can change the Tone and Length of the email. You decide to start out by setting the Tone to Formal and the Length to Medium.
Enter the following prompt in the What do you want this email to say? field. Don't select the Generate button yet as you first have to attach the Trey Research - VPN Technical Overview.docx file to the email:
I'm the Lead Consultant for Trey Research. I'll be managing the implementation of a VPN in Fabrikam's corporate network. Draft an email to Fabrikam's IT staff indicating that I would like to meet with them to introduce them to VPNs and explain how we'll be implementing one in their network. Most of the meeting will be based on the attached report, which provides an overview of VPNs. Tell them that a meeting request will be forthcoming.
After entering or pasting in the prompt, select the Attach file option in the Message ribbon. In the menu that appears, the Trey Research - VPN Technical Overview.docx file should appear in the list of Suggested files. Select this file. It may take a few seconds, but the file name should appear above the draft.
Select the Generate button that appears in the prompt field.
Review the email draft that Copilot generated. Even if you're satisfied with it, for this exercise, you're going to generate multiple Copilot drafts so that you can see examples of how Copilot changes the content based on changes to Tone and Length.
At the top of the message, Copilot displays the start of the prompt that you just entered ("I'm the Lead Consultant for Trey R..."). Select this section of the prompt to see what happens.
Copilot displays a Rewrite with Copilot window that allows you to edit the prior prompt and regenerate an entirely new draft. At this point, you're happy with the message, but you want to see how it would change when using a different tone and length. Select the Generation options icon that appears below the prompt. Change the Tone to Direct and the Length to Long, and then select the Generate button.
Review the Copilot draft. At the top of the Rewrite with Copilot window, note the "I'm the Lead Consultant for Trey R..." link. Also note how Copilot indicates this draft is "2 of 2", meaning you're looking at the second of two Copilot drafts. You can select the back arrow (<) to go back to the previous Copilot draft, which in this case is the first draft that has a Formal tone. If you generate multiple Copilot drafts, as you do in this exercise, you can use these arrows to go back and forth between drafts to find one that you like. If you find a draft that you want, you can select one of the available buttons to either Keep it or Regenerate a new draft with the same tone and length. Note the salutation and complementary close, and the overall tone of the message for this Direct draft. Since the email wasn't that long to begin with, the change in length didn't seem to have much of an effect. However, you definitely don't like the Direct tone, so you want to generate a new draft with a different tone.
Select the linked prompt at the top of the window ("I'm the Lead Consultant for Trey R...") to return back to the Rewrite with Copilot window. Select the Generation options icon, and this time change the Tone to Neutral and the Length back to Long. You want the Length to be the same as the Formal draft. That way, when you compare the Formal and Neutral drafts, the length of each draft is the same. As such, any differences between the two drafts are due to Tone. Select Generate.
Review the response. Note the salutation and complementary close, and the overall tone of the message. You don't care for the Neutral tone, which you feel isn't professional enough for this type of email. Select the linked prompt at the top of the window ("I'm the Lead Consultant for Trey R...") to return back to the Rewrite with Copilot window. Select the Generation options icon, and this time change the Tone to Casual. Select Generate.
Review the response. Note the salutation and complementary close, and the overall tone of the message. At this point, you realize that you don't like the Direct or Neutral tones, but you're not sure whether you prefer the Formal or Casual option. If you can't remember how the two messages appeared, make note of the Casual salutation and complementary close, and the quality of the message. Then select the back arrow until you return to the first Copilot draft, which had the Formal tone. It's up to you whether you want to use the Casual or Formal draft. Just make sure that the current draft you're looking at is the one you chose.
Once you're satisfied with the tone and length of a message, you may still be unsatisfied with the text of the message itself. If you don't want to change the tone or length, you can still have Copilot regenerate a new message using the desired tone and length without asking for any more changes. Or you can enter a prompt that asks Copilot to make a change to the existing draft.
In this case, once you select either the Casual or Formal draft, you decide to have Copilot to make a change to the body of the message. You want Copilot to mention the importance of reviewing the attached report prior to the meeting, and also ask the staff to pay close attention to the section on Implementation best practices. In the prompt field that currently says "Anything you'd like to change?" enter the following prompt and then select the Send arrow icon at the end of the field.
Please add a note about how important it is for them to review the report prior to the meeting. Let them know that your presentation at the meeting will assume they have done so and are familiar with the basic information provided in the report. Also ask them to pay special attention to the section on Implementation best practices.
Warning
Don't select the Regenerate button. Doing so won't update the current draft based on your request in the prompt. Instead, if you select Regenerate, it generates an entirely new message based ONLY on this prompt - which isn’t what you want. Therefore, make sure that when you ask for a change, you must select the Send arrow at the end of the prompt field.
If you receive an error message indicating "Sorry, something went wrong. Copilot is working on it." then resubmit the prompt again. If it fails a second time, then this scenario is one in which Copilot may not like a follow-up prompt that asks it to do more than one thing. In your initial prompt, you can ask Copilot to perform multiple tasks. But on subsequent prompts, Copilot often returns this error when you ask it to do more than one thing. To work around this situation, you should break the prior prompt down into multiple prompts, each asking it to do a single task. If you have time and want to experiment, then break the prior prompt down into three prompts:
- Add a note about how important it is for them to review the report prior to the meeting.
- Add a note letting them know that this presentation assumes they're familiar with the basic information provided in the report.
- Add a note asking them to pay special attention to the section on Implementation best practices.
Scroll through the updated draft to review the changes. After reviewing this latest iteration, you're satisfied with the draft, so select the Keep it button.
Note how the message appears in the body of the email and the Rewrite with Copilot window disappears. At this point, you can manually review the email and make any changes that you desire.
Since you aren't sending this message, select the trash can (Discard) icon in the upper right corner of the email screen to delete the draft of this email.