In Nov 2023, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Cloth’s basic availability and Public Preview of Copilot in Microsoft Cloth. In a earlier put up, I defined what Copilot means to Energy BI builders, which is legitimate for different Cloth builders corresponding to knowledge engineers and knowledge scientists as Copilot for Cloth helps with these experiences as properly. However the primary focus of this weblog put up is to debate the necessities, tips on how to allow Copilot, and tips on how to use it from a Energy BI growth standpoint. So, this weblog is not going to talk about different facets of Copilot in Microsoft Cloth. With that, let’s start.

Proper off the bat, Copilot is barely accessible on Energy BI Premium capacities or their equal Cloth capacities. So, NO it’s NOT accessible on Energy BI Professional or Premium Per Person or Energy BI Embedded Analytics. So the Energy BI gadgets you need to use Copilot on should be in a Workspace assigned to a Energy BI Premium P1 or Microsoft Cloth F64 capacities or larger.

You additionally have to have a Contributor function on the premium workspace.

To make use of Copilot, your Microsoft Cloth Administrator should allow it from the Cloth Admin Portal. This setting shouldn’t be accessible in all areas but, however Microsoft is progressively rolling it out to extra areas.

Helpful hyperlinks:

Enabling Copilot on Cloth Admin Portal

As talked about earlier than, your Cloth Administrator should allow Copilot options throughout the Admin Portal. Comply with these steps to allow Copilot in your tenant after logging into Microsoft Cloth:

1. Click on Settings (the gear icon on the highest proper of the web page)
2. Click on Admin portal
3. Make sure that the Tenant setting tab is chosen
4. Scroll all the best way all the way down to the Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service (preview)​ part

Notice

You too can use the search field and seek for OpenAI to search out the Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service (preview)​ part.

5. Allow the Customers can use a preview of Copilot and different options powered by Azure OpenAI
6. Click on the Apply button
7. Allow the ​​​Information despatched to Azure OpenAI could be processed exterior your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion
8. Click on the Apply button once more

That’s it. You enabled the Copilot capabilities in your tenant.

The next picture reveals the previous steps:

Listed below are some necessary notes to concentrate to:

Notes

1. Whereas this can be a Preview characteristic, I might strongly suggest studying by way of the Phrases of use earlier than enabling it in your tenant, particularly if in your Manufacturing tenant.
2. These configurations apply tenant-wide. We at present can’t limit it to particular safety teams.
3. Microsoft has performed an excellent job in highlighting a be aware when enabling the Customers can use a preview of Copilot and different options powered by Azure OpenAI setting that claims:

If Azure OpenAI shouldn’t be accessible in your area, your knowledge could have to be processed exterior your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion. To permit knowledge to be processed in a area the place Azure OpenAI is on the market, activate the associated setting, “Information despatched to Azure OpenAI could be processed exterior your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion”.

4. Take note of one other be aware highlighted below the ​​​Information despatched to Azure OpenAI could be processed exterior your tenant’s geographic area, compliance boundary, or nationwide cloud occasion part saying:
   Even when this setting is on, additionally, you will have to activate the associated setting “Customers can use a preview of Copilot and different options powered by Azure OpenAI” for these options to work.​
5. I encourage you to learn Microsoft’s documentation round Accountable use for Copilot in Energy BI.

With that, now allow us to use Copilot on Cloth service and see the way it generates stories.

Producing stories with Copilot is tremendous simple. Comply with these steps to generate your first report with Copilot:

1. Navigate to the specified premium workspace
2. Hover over the specified semantic mannequin and click on the Extra choices ellipsis button
3. Click on Create Report

4. On the brand new report, click on the Copilot button
5. Click on the Create a web page that reveals… button
6. Kind in to clarify the way you want the Copilot to generate the report
7. Submit your request by urgent Enter in your keyboard or clicking the submit button

There you go! You’ve it!

It seems to be fairly cool, doesn’t it? However wait, there’s something incorrect with the report. Have you ever seen the road chart within the backside proper of the report reveals a flat line for Web Gross sales and Web Revenue by Product Class? It can’t be right. This takes us to the following part of this weblog put up, the place we talk about some suggestions and methods.

As Copilot seems to be on the construction of the semantic mannequin to generate stories for us, it’s essential to make the semantic mannequin as optimised as doable. For instance, within the earlier picture, we will shortly spot a difficulty mirrored within the Web Gross sales and Web Revenue by Product Class line chart on the underside proper of the report web page the place the chart reveals a continuing line for all product classes. This means a possible lacking relationship between the Product Class and the Web Gross sales tables contributing to the connection. Let’s look into this.

The next picture reveals the information mannequin the place I put the required tabled as a brand new structure:

As you possibly can see, the lacking relationship is certainly between the Product Subcategory and Product tables, which led to incorrect ends in the reporting layer. Creating the connection between the 2 tables fixes that challenge as proven within the following pictures:

As you see, semantic mannequin points can result in reporting points generated by Copilot. Nicely, let’s face it, that is precisely what we count on to occur even when we manually create the report, isn’t it?

The previous instance leads us to the next suggestions and methods to get the very best Copilot expertise:

• Get the relationships proper: as we noticed within the above instance, lacking or incorrect relationships will result in inaccurate knowledge visualisation.
• Naming conference: Use extra user-friendly names within the knowledge mannequin. For instance, Whole Gross sales as a measure identify can be extra comprehensible than TotalSales. Enjoyable truth: Nobody likes Col1 or Tble1 names for any objects, particularly Copilot.
• Create specific measures: It’s higher to have specific measures within the knowledge mannequin as a substitute of implicit measures. Only a fast be aware for individuals who have no idea the distinction between specific and implicit measures:
• Implicit measures: Implicit measures are columns proven with a Sigma icon () within the Information pane in Energy BI. These columns are mechanically detected as measures when utilized in a visible on the reporting canvas. In different phrases, we don’t create implicit measures.
• Specific measures: Alternatively, the express measures, are these ones we create throughout the knowledge mannequin utilizing DAX. The express measures additionally seem within the Information pane in Energy BI. The icon for specific measures seems to be like a calculator ().
• Comply with star schema mannequin design: Create truth and dimension tables following the star schema design. For instance, it’s best to maintain additive, measurable and quantitative knowledge, plus overseas keys of the dimension tables. In distinction, maintain the descriptive knowledge within the dimension tables.
• Create hierarchies: Creating hierarchies in dimensions helps Copilot perceive the information grouping higher. That is useful, particularly with figuring out drill-down actions.
• Take note of knowledge sorts: Defining right knowledge sorts for measures and columns within the knowledge mannequin helps Copilot to generate higher stories. For instance, utilizing Date knowledge kind as a substitute of Textual content helps Copilot to know it’s coping with date values as a substitute of textual content.
• Use less complicated prompts: In my expertise with the report era functionality of Copilot for Energy BI, it performs finest when utilizing less complicated prompts with minimal circumstances, corresponding to Create a web page that reveals Gross sales by Product as a substitute of Create a web page that reveals Gross sales by Product the place Procust Class is “Equipment” and Calendar Date is 2012. Whereas it nonetheless generates the report, its accuracy decreases by elevating the complexity of our immediate.

The Copilot for Energy BI does a very good job of producing stories, particularly in its early levels. We will use this characteristic to make stories, however we ought to be conscious that there could be issues, particularly if we haven’t made our knowledge fashions higher. We have to test and repair the stories.

As at all times, please share your ideas and opinions with us.