Copilot foundations
Understand what Copilot can do and establish responsible practice habits.
- 01
Choose useful AI tasks
Start with bounded work you can verify. Today you will identify two helpful IE uses and one task that needs expert judgment.
- 02
Check your work-account access
Find the IE-approved Copilot experience and document what your own account can access.
- 03
Classify safe practice inputs
Decide what belongs in a training exercise before you paste, upload, or reference it.
- 04
Verify a five-bullet summary
Create your first source-bounded summary and check every bullet against the fictional case.
- 05
Correct an unsupported claim
Use assessment and correction to complete a credible first-week learning record.
Write reusable prompts
Create instructions that define the task, source boundaries, audience, and output.
- 06
Give your prompt a clear job
Replace “summarize this” with instructions that make the requested result measurable.
- 07
Compare prompt results fairly
Test the vague and specific prompts against the same case, then inspect the differences.
- 08
Set tone and missing-fact rules
Write repeatable IE style instructions that improve clarity while preserving evidence.
- 09
Save a reusable prompt template
Turn a useful prompt into a fill-in template that can support another bounded task.
- 10
Test your template on a new task
Use a second fictional assignment to find whether your template is truly reusable.
Ground answers in useful references
Organize task context and distinguish current facts from historical examples.
- 11
Build a three-source inventory
Define which references serve facts, format, and terminology before asking for a briefing.
- 12
Separate facts from style examples
Place a current source and a format example into a scoped workspace, with an explicit role for each.
- 13
Write source-priority instructions
Create a source rule that prefers current facts and exposes unresolved conflicts.
- 14
Challenge the source boundary
Ask three questions with known answers and verify where each answer came from.
- 15
Refresh an outdated reference
Replace a stale mock reference and test whether the answer follows the updated source.
Draft and refine Word documents
Produce a clear first draft and verify it against the source.
- 16
Outline a one-page briefing
Plan the document before drafting so that the essential facts have an obvious place.
- 17
Draft from current references
Combine your reusable prompt and labeled sources to create the first briefing draft.
- 18
Edit without changing meaning
Make the briefing concise and operational while preserving the facts that matter.
- 19
Audit the briefing against its source
Use Copilot to find possible defects, then independently verify the findings.
- 20
Package the checked briefing
Finalize the one-page work product and retain the prompts needed to repeat the process.
Manage Outlook communications
Summarize discussions and draft clear messages without creating new commitments.
- 21
Build a bounded email thread
Start with a fictional three-message conversation that gives a reply a clear purpose.
- 22
Separate facts, requests, and gaps
Turn a thread into a checkable summary without blending who said what.
- 23
Draft a reply without new promises
Write a concise sponsor reply that requests a decision and preserves the limits of the source.
- 24
Turn the thread into an agenda
Draft an internal agenda that distinguishes preparation, decisions, and unresolved participants.
- 25
Save a checked response template
Finish the week with a reusable reply pattern and a final accuracy record.
Capture Teams meeting actions
Turn meeting content into an accurate draft action register.
- 26
Write a traceable mock transcript
Create a short fictional meeting record that can support a precise action log.
- 27
Extract evidence-backed actions
Build a draft action register in which every action, owner, and date has a source.
- 28
Separate decisions from proposals
Review the meeting record without turning tentative language into commitments.
- 29
Draft a complete meeting follow-up
Use the checked register to write a follow-up that does not lose important qualifications.
- 30
Package a verified action log
Save the prompt, checked register, and a review rule you can repeat.
Analyze Excel trackers
Ask precise questions about structured data and check the answers.
- 31
Structure the eight-row tracker
Prepare the fictional dataset so questions and formulas operate on the intended rows.
- 32
Count overdue open submissions
Ask a precise question and reconcile its answer with the qualifying rows.
- 33
Test a days-overdue formula
Translate the definition into a formula and test cases that expose logic errors.
- 34
Chart open submissions by site
Create a simple chart and verify that its bars represent the intended population.
- 35
Write a verified operational summary
Turn the checked tracker and chart into three concise, factual sentences.
Build Excel management reports
Create repeatable summaries while controlling definitions and assumptions.
- 36
Define the reporting rules
Write definitions beside the table before building a repeatable management report.
- 37
Build and test aging categories
Apply nonoverlapping buckets and verify the boundary between seven and eight days.
- 38
Reconcile a site-by-aging PivotTable
Build the management view and prove its total agrees with the source population.
- 39
Separate findings from explanations
Write a management summary that prioritizes observations without inventing causes.
- 40
Save a repeatable refresh procedure
Package the report so the next run preserves definitions and repeats the checks.
Create useful PowerPoint updates
Turn checked source content into concise slides that follow IE branding.
- 41
Plan five clear slides
Design a fictional monthly study update around the decisions your audience needs to make.
- 42
Build from checked sources
Turn your Week 4 briefing and Week 8 report into a draft without changing their facts.
- 43
Refine the IE deck
Apply the approved template and make each slide easy to read without losing meaning.
- 44
Prepare speaker notes
Create brief talking points and prepare honest answers to likely audience questions.
- 45
Review as a viewer
Finish a usable five-slide deck with source information that supports later review.
Apply Copilot to your role
Select one bounded recurring task and adapt a Microsoft role exercise to IE.
- 46
Choose your role task
Select one small recurring task that can be judged against known sources.
- 47
Adapt the role exercise
Translate a Microsoft scenario into a small fictional IE workflow with explicit source boundaries.
- 48
Define acceptance checks
Decide what a correct output must contain before timing or comparing tools.
- 49
Save task and review prompts
Pair a generation prompt with a separate source-checking prompt.
- 50
Measure the manual baseline
Time a complete manual run so next week’s assisted results have a fair comparison.
Verify quality and measure savings
Test whether a Copilot workflow reduces total effort at the same quality level.
- 51
Define quality gates
Translate trusted-source principles into clear criteria for passing a workflow trial.
- 52
Prepare comparable test sets
Create two fictional input sets with known answers and record their versions.
- 53
Run assisted trial one
Measure the first complete assisted execution, including correction and verification.
- 54
Run assisted trial two
Repeat the workflow on the second comparable set and record any prompt changes.
- 55
Calculate real savings
Compare complete effort and keep one-time setup and maintenance visible.
Complete a reusable daily workflow
Package a tested workflow that a colleague could follow and evaluate.
- 56
Document the daily workflow
Turn the tested task into steps a colleague can follow from trigger to checked output.
- 57
Refine instructions for reuse
Use the first two trials to improve the documented steps and prepare a third test.
- 58
Run the documented workflow
Test whether the written steps produce a checked final deliverable on a new input set.
- 59
Package the reusable workflow
Create a concise handoff containing instructions, evidence, source maintenance, and economics.
- 60
Recommend adopt revise or stop
Use all three trials to make an evidence-based, bounded recommendation.