Artificial Intelligence / Use Cases / Document Assistant
Find the correct answer in your documents, along with the source
A helper for your documents in SharePoint and Teams : the latest procedures, the signed contract, the report that matters.The company knows a lot, and that knowledge is documented—in ten versions, in three locations, and in the head of the person who’s retiring. The assistant for your documents finds the right answer in the documents your teams already have, cites it, and respects everyone’s rights. It works Microsoft 365with what your licenses often already include, on one condition: that the rights have been sorted out beforehand.
Three real-life situations that occur in most companies
The company's knowledge exists. What's missing is the path to getting there —and that path narrows a little more with every departure.
There are three versions of the procedure, and no one knows which one is the official one
The one on the team website, the one sent by email in March, the one the manager keeps on his desk. Each one is “the right one” for someone. A new employee who’s looking for it finds the wrong one—or all three—and asks the person next to them.
It's not that there aren't enough documents—it's the response.
The same questions keep coming up, and it's always the same people who answer them
How to fill out the leave request form, where to find the quote template, what the delivery deadline is for this customer: these are questions that require written answers and are asked every week—either by phone or in Teams —to the few people who know the answers.
Those who know spend their time repeating what is written.
The person who knows leaves
Twenty years of knowledge about a client, a machine, or a case file disappear when that person leaves. What she wrote down remains—but no one knows where it is anymore, or what’s still true. Three months later, we end up redoing what she had already resolved.
A company's memory lies in its documents, not in an organizational chart.
What the assistant does with your documents, explained in everyday language
It does not replace searching for SharePoint : it displays the result, along with the source, in the window your teams already have open.
An answer, not a list of twenty files
When asked, “What is the delivery time for this customer?”, he responds with the delivery time, the contract it comes from, and the item in question. The list of results remains available to anyone who wants it.
The source, as always, and the version
The document, the passage, the date of modification. When two versions contradict each other, he points it out and cites both rather than silently choosing one over the other.
Human rights, and nothing else
It only finds what the person would find on their own in SharePoint. The rights don’t change; they just become visible. That’s why we review them beforehand.
In * Teams*, in SharePoint, in Outlook
Copilot responds in the following apps Microsoft 365. A Copilot Studio agent responds in a Teams channel, on the intranet, or on a specific team site.
One scope per assistant
The human resources assistant reads the HR intranet; the technical department assistant reads the technical documentation. Two areas, two people in charge, two accurate answers rather than one mixed-up answer.
The assistant says when the answer is missing
No document, a question outside the scope: he says so and points to the person or the form. An assistant working on your documents who invents a procedure is a risk, not a service.
A concrete, step-by-step example
A new employee asks on Teams : “How do we get travel expenses reimbursed, and how long does it take?” The corpus is the human resources intranet, in SharePoint.
What Remains Human
The assistant responds; it does not decide what is true. Four decisions are left to designated individuals, and they are written down before the system goes live.
Decisions That Cannot Be Delegated
A document assistant shows you the status of your documents. The issues it highlights—duplicates, conflicting versions, overly broad sharing permissions—are corrected by people, not by a setting.
- Which version is the authoritative one? One owner per corpus decides, archives the old one, and responds when the assistant cites the wrong one.
- What the assistant is allowed to read. The scope—which websites, which libraries—is determined by the data managers.
- Outgoing correspondence. A draft response to the customer is reviewed and sent by one person.
- What's Missing. The unanswered questions reveal what the intranet should contain. Someone is writing it.
The data used, and what they require
No new database, no duplication: the assistant reads what you already have. That’s its strength, and that’s why organizing is essential.
Sources
- SharePoint sites: intranet, team sites, procedure and template libraries.
- OneDrive : shared personal documents, when the scope includes them—and often it shouldn't.
- Teams : files and, depending on the settings, channel conversations.
- Exchange : the person's emails, for Copilot—never those of others.
- Entra ID : groups and rights, which determine everything else.
What they must have
- Rights that tell the truth. The breakdown of shares, site by site, comes before any launch. That’s half the project.
- An authoritative version, and archiving of the others—or at least a reliable modification date.
- One named owner per site, who responds when an answer is incorrect.
- Readable documents: a crooked scan, a table pasted as an image, or instructions included in an email are not readable.
- A scope that starts small: an intranet, one department, twenty people.
Where the assistant works, and which one we would look at first
In this case, the answer is almost always the same: wherever the documents are already located. Other architectures are designed for other scenarios.
At Microsoft
RecommendedThe documents are located at SharePoint and Teams, and the rights are at Entra ID. Copilot or an agent Copilot Studio reads them on-site. No hardware required; initial coverage in a few weeks.
At your facility
For another caseIf the online service is excluded by a policy, it is no longer an assistant for your documents: it is a private RAG, with its own page.
Partly at Microsoft, partly at your office
PossibleWhen part of the corpus needs to remain on-site at your location and the other part does not. In that case, the privately hosted enterprise assistant best fits the project.
Next to the machine
Things to AvoidA literature search requires neither milliseconds nor a workshop.
Why online, and when we say otherwise
Three criteria determine this use case. The third is the one that triggers a switch to a different use case.
| Criterion | What tips the scales | Toward what |
|---|---|---|
| Where are the documents? | In SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams. Moving them to be read elsewhere adds a copy, a synchronization step, and a risk, for a result that Microsoft 365 is available right there. | Online |
| What the licenses contain | Copilot is Microsoft 365 already acts as an assistant for your documents, provided you have a license. A Copilot Studio agent is pay-as-you-go and covers a specific scope. Both solutions require no hardware. | Online, starting with what has already been paid for |
| The sensitivity of a portion of the corpus | If a contract, clause, or provision prohibits the online service from reading a portion of the documents, that portion is treated differently: a privately hosted business assistant for a subset of the data, or a private RAG for the entire corpus. | Another example, with its page |
Microsoft commits to keeping data in Switzerland for several services Microsoft 365, provided that the tenant’s default region is Switzerland—a requirement that is met. Data processing by the models follows its own rules; we review them with your data protection officer before going live.
What the assistant connects to
Here, almost everything is already connected: that’s the advantage of a system that runs on Microsoft 365. All that’s left to connect are the business systems.
Infrastructure: none, in this case
This is the shortest section on the page, and that's good news. A document assistant in Microsoft 365 doesn't require a server or a graphics processor.
The day when some of the documents can no longer be read online
The scenario has a different name. For a subset—whether it’s the Microsoft interface or a confidential corpus on your premises—it’s the privately hosted enterprise assistant. For an entire corpus excluded from the online service, it’s the private RAG. In both cases, we also scale the necessary computing infrastructure; here, there isn’t any.
How We Carry Out the Project
Five steps. The first one is worth doing even if you decide not to use the assistant: it reduces actual exposure, makes searching easier, and prepares for the arrival of the agents.
Managing Access Rights
A breakdown of sharing settings, site by site: who can see what, since when, and what shouldn’t be visible. Corrections—whether made or not recommended—and written approval: we can go ahead.
The Scope and the Real Issues
An initial corpus, its owner, and the twenty questions people are actually asking today—as gathered from those who answered them.
The prototype, as shown in your documents
A Copilot on-site, or a Copilot Studio agent, for about 20 people, for two to three weeks. We assess how well the identified issues are addressed and how people respond to them.
Gradual reopening and job-specific training
One service, then a second. The training focuses on professional issues, not on the tool. Licenses are reissued to those who use them.
Maintenance
Flagged responses are reviewed, duplicates are removed, permissions are updated, and unanswered questions are converted into documents. Every quarter.
Estimated timeframe: six to ten weeks from clearing the rights to implementation for an initial scope covering about 100 people. This is just a rough estimate—measuring this is part of the job. And here’s a test you can do on your own: look up one of your procedures as a new employee would. If you find two different versions—or none at all—you’ve just measured what your first assistant would have come up with.
Scope and Limits
What a document assistant doesn't do—and what we don't promise.
The assistant gives the wrong answer when the documents contradict each other
Two versions of a procedure, two possible answers. The assistant is programmed to list both and state them, but it doesn’t know which one is correct. Only the owner of the corpus knows, and only archiving the old rule solves the problem once and for all.
The assistant highlights permissions that are too broad
He isn't creating a leak; he's exposing a oversight. Without a statement of rights before opening the case, we don't proceed—and that statement has to be redone because the shares change.
The assistant does not read text that is illegible
A crooked scan, a picture of a posted chart, a procedure buried in an email attachment: the assistant either doesn’t see them or has trouble reading them. Making a document readable is part of organizing it.
The cost is based on usage
One Copilot license per person, or agent messages billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. The actual cost becomes clear in the third month. We calculate it in advance, and we recommend purchasing only a few licenses at first: we reassign the licenses of those who aren’t using them.
What We Won't Do
A demonstration as a selling point. The set of documents featured there is relevant, carefully selected, and up-to-date—and your intranet doesn't look like that. We evaluate your documents based on your questions.
Related cases and their corresponding pages
When another use case is the right one, and the technologies behind it.
Privately Housed Business Assistant
When part of the corpus needs to remain on your premises: Teams at Microsoft; sensitive documents and the model remain on your premises.
View the case A similar casePrivate RAG
When online access is restricted for the entire collection: search results, templates, and documents on your datacenter.
View the case TechnologySharePoint : the source that the assistant reads
Rights, restricted search, data residency in Switzerland: what is configured SharePoint before the assistant.
View the page TechnologyMicrosoft Copilot
Roll it out without a hitch: first, manage the rights; next, address real-world use cases; and finally, measure the results.
View the page TechnologyCopilot Studio
One agent per area, with a job description: what they know, what they’re authorized to do, and when they hand off responsibilities.
View the page ArticleLimit what Copilot sees in SharePoint
Site-by-site filtered search: what it takes away, what it leaves unchanged, and its real limitations.
Read the articleLet's talk about this use case
Let's start with the access map
Tell us where your documents are stored, who is currently answering frequently asked questions, and whether Copilot licenses have arrived or are expected to arrive. We’ll be back with the first scope to open, what needs to be closed out first, and what a three-week prototype would allow us to assess.
What we offer is the opportunity to meet the engineers who will do the work. The fee estimate and project scope definition are part of the project. The initial discussion, however, is free of charge.
Renens, Sion, Châtel-Saint-Denis
Microsoft Solutions Partner. SharePoint, Copilot, and the agents—all part of the same team that manages your tenant.
Renens VD +41 21 806 37 15
Sion VS +41 27 552 00 22
Châtel-Saint-Denis FR +41 26 322 59 05