Microsoft Cloth: Producing Reviews with Copilot

In Nov 2023, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Cloth’s basic availability and Public Preview of Copilot in Microsoft Cloth. In a earlier publish, I defined what Copilot means to Energy BI builders, which is legitimate for different Cloth builders akin to knowledge engineers and knowledge scientists as Copilot for Cloth helps with these experiences as effectively. However the primary focus of this weblog publish is to debate the necessities, methods to allow Copilot, and methods to use it from a Energy BI growth standpoint. So, this weblog won’t focus on different elements of Copilot in Microsoft Cloth. With that, let’s start.

Proper off the bat, Copilot is barely out there on Energy BI Premium capacities or their equal Cloth capacities. So, NO it’s NOT out there on Energy BI Professional or Premium Per Person or Energy BI Embedded Analytics. So the Energy BI gadgets you need to use Copilot on have to 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 out there in all areas but, however Microsoft is steadily 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 inside the Admin Portal. Observe 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 way in which all the way down to the Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service (preview)​ part

Word

You can too 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 essential notes to concentrate to:

Notes

1. Whereas it is a Preview function, I’d strongly suggest studying by 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 the moment can’t limit it to particular safety teams.
3. Microsoft has finished a fantastic job in highlighting a observe 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 out there in your area, your knowledge might must 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 observe highlighted beneath 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 studies.

Producing studies with Copilot is tremendous straightforward. Observe 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. Sort 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 gotten it!

It seems fairly cool, doesn’t it? However wait, there’s something unsuitable with the report. Have you ever observed 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 appropriate. This takes us to the subsequent part of this weblog publish, the place we focus on some suggestions and methods.

As Copilot seems on the construction of the semantic mannequin to generate studies for us, it’s essential to make the semantic mannequin as optimised as doable. For instance, within the earlier picture, we are able to 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 info mannequin the place I put the required tabled as a brand new format:

As you’ll be able to see, the lacking relationship is certainly between the Product Subcategory and Product tables, which led to incorrect leads to the reporting layer. Creating the connection between the 2 tables fixes that subject as proven within the following photos:

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 most effective 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, Complete Gross sales as a measure identify could be extra comprehensible than TotalSales. Enjoyable reality: Nobody likes Col1 or Tble1 names for any objects, particularly Copilot.
• Create express measures: It’s higher to have express measures within the knowledge mannequin as an alternative of implicit measures. Only a fast observe for individuals who have no idea the distinction between express and implicit measures:
• Implicit measures: Implicit measures are columns proven with a Sigma icon () within the Information pane in Energy BI. These columns are robotically detected as measures when utilized in a visible on the reporting canvas. In different phrases, we don’t create implicit measures.
• Specific measures: However, the express measures, are these ones we create inside the knowledge mannequin utilizing DAX. The express measures additionally seem within the Information pane in Energy BI. The icon for express measures seems like a calculator ().
• Observe star schema mannequin design: Create reality and dimension tables following the star schema design. For instance, it’s best to maintain additive, measurable and quantitative knowledge, plus international keys of the dimension tables. In distinction, hold the descriptive knowledge within the dimension tables.
• Create hierarchies: Creating hierarchies in dimensions helps Copilot perceive the info grouping higher. That is useful, specifically with figuring out drill-down actions.
• Take note of knowledge varieties: Defining appropriate knowledge varieties for measures and columns within the knowledge mannequin helps Copilot to generate higher studies. For instance, utilizing Date knowledge kind as an alternative of Textual content helps Copilot to know it’s coping with date values as an alternative of textual content.
• Use easier prompts: In my expertise with the report era functionality of Copilot for Energy BI, it performs finest when utilizing easier prompts with minimal circumstances, akin to Create a web page that reveals Gross sales by Product as an alternative 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 job of producing studies, particularly in its early phases. We will use this function to make studies, however we needs to be conscious that there is perhaps issues, particularly if we haven’t made our knowledge fashions higher. We have to test and repair the studies.

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