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Getting started with Copilot - Excel

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In this Video:

Unlock the potential of Excel with Copilot. In this video, we delve into how Microsoft 365 Copilot can streamline the process of managing invoices and data extraction, saving you valuable time and effort.

Key topics covered include:

  • Effortless Data Management: Learn how to swiftly extract invoice details from PDFs and automate data entry into Excel spreadsheets. No more tedious copy-pasting—Copilot simplifies your workflow.
  • Quality Assurance: Understand the importance of verifying extracted data before sending it to accounts. While Copilot handles the heavy lifting, you remain in control, ensuring accuracy and accountability.
  • Advanced Features: Discover how Copilot assists with complex formulas and data analysis, allowing you to summarize expenses and identify outliers with ease. Engage in productive dialogue with Copilot to enhance your data insights.
  • Integration with Other Tools: See how you can harness Copilot’s capabilities to automate tasks across platforms, such as extracting invoices from emails and organizing them seamlessly in Excel.
  • Future of Work: Embrace the forward-looking approach of using AI to enhance productivity and reduce manual workloads. Learn how to incorporate Copilot into your daily tasks for maximum efficiency.

By the end of this video, you’ll not only grasp how to navigate Copilot but also gain actionable insights to improve your Excel experience significantly. Join us and transform your approach to data management with Microsoft 365 Copilot.

FAQ

1. What can Microsoft 365 Copilot do in Excel?

Microsoft 365 Copilot can help you work faster in Excel by extracting information from documents, populating spreadsheets, summarising data, identifying outliers, and helping you build or understand formulas. It is especially useful for repetitive admin tasks that normally require manual copy-and-paste work.

2. Can Copilot extract invoice data from a PDF into Excel?

Yes. Copilot can take information from a PDF invoice and insert the relevant details into an Excel spreadsheet, including invoice fields and line items. This can save time and reduce manual data entry when processing invoices or other structured documents.

3. How do I ask Copilot to fill in an Excel file from another document?

A simple prompt is often enough. For example, you can upload the source file and ask Copilot to “extract the detail from this invoice and insert it into this Excel file.” If you already know the end result belongs in Excel, it usually makes sense to start the chat inside Excel so Copilot can work with the workbook context straight away.

4. Does Copilot understand the workbook I am already using?

Yes. When you start Copilot inside Excel, it can use the current workbook as context. That means it can work with the spreadsheet you already have open, reference the existing tabs, and complete tasks with fewer steps than starting elsewhere.

5. Can Copilot check for duplicate invoice entries before adding new data?

In many cases, yes. Copilot may check whether the same information already exists in the workbook before inserting new data. If it finds a likely duplicate, it can prompt you to confirm before going ahead, which helps reduce accidental double handling.

6. Do I still need to review Copilot’s work?

Yes. Copilot can save time, but human review still matters. Before sending information to accounts or using it in a business process, it is important to check the extracted data, confirm accuracy, and make any corrections needed. Copilot supports the work, but accountability still sits with the person approving the final result.

7. Can Copilot help with complex Excel formulas and data analysis?

Yes. Copilot can explain complex formulas, help create new ones, and answer practical questions about your spreadsheet data. For example, you can ask it to summarise expenses by category, identify unusually high costs, or highlight patterns that may need attention.

8. Can Copilot automate more of the process than just filling in a spreadsheet?

Yes. Copilot can support broader workflows by combining actions across files, email, and cloud storage. For example, it may be able to locate an invoice from email, extract the attachment, populate the spreadsheet, save the updated file, and prepare it for your review. This can help teams create faster, more consistent processes while still keeping a final quality check in place.

All right, so onto Excel. So a very common, uh, use case that we see is the need to fill out, uh, Excel. spreadsheets with data from other files. Um, and so in this example, we’ve got an invoice, uh, template that, you know, I get PDF, uh, PDF invoice, in.
I need to extract the, the, line items and the invoice data before I can send it through to accounts for, you know, approval or for, for actioning. And so, you know, typically that would be me opening up a PDF, right? Copy-pasting lines in, uh, finding the fields and copy-pasting it in.
Uh, now, with Copilot, you don’t have to do that. And so, you come into Copilot, here. You launch it by clicking the little Copilot, uh, button down the bottom here. It’ll open up a very similar looking chat window. Uh, press the little plus sign and upload file. Go find the file you want.
It’ll say, “Cool, yeah, we’re uploading that. ’cause we need it.” And then just give it the instruction, right? So, uh, “Extract the detail from this invoice and insert it into this Excel file.” Now, we’re in Excel, and so Copilot here. already has the context of, well, clearly you’re doing something with this file.
Um, now you could achieve something very similar, if not the exact same, in the Copilot, app without this. Um, however, it’s probably gonna take a couple of extra steps. And so if you know that your end result is you’re going to, uh, be in Excel doing work, just start the chat in Excel.
Um, and so, uh, yeah, you can see here. it’s, it’s working through. Okay, we’ found some line items, cool. There’s no duplicate stuff in this file. already. That’s an interesting check, right? I didn’t say anything about, you’ know, don’t accidentally add this PDF again or anything like that.
It’s just gone through and done that check. Now, the way Copilot is likely to have surfaced that if there was a duplicate is it would say, “Hey, Kane, just before I add that, there’s a duplicate here. You sure you want me to go ahead?” And you could say, “Yep, go ahead.
Cool. Go on, add it.” So you can see here it’s, it’s extracted some invoice information, so it’s put it in there. Uh, that’s cool. Uh, it’s also done line items. So if I jump into the line items tab, which we weren’t on, there you go. All that information’s there.
And so the extraction of that PDF just happened basically magically. I didn’t have to do any of that. But now my job is to spend the minute, you know, I, I, I… It could have taken me five minutes, but now I need to go and spend a minute doing the QA, right?
That’s my responsibility as a person with a brain. Uh, s- because ultimately, if I send this to accounts and I haven’t checked it, and they come back and flag something, that’s kind of on me, right? I’m accountable for that. I can’t say, “Oh, whoops, it was Copilot.” Uh, and so, you know, even though this has saved me some time, I still have responsibility here.
And so, uh, you can see there it’s, it’s saying, “Okay, cool. This is all of that stuff. Do, do you want me to go ahead with that?” Now, that might seem silly in the context of an empty spreadsheet, but you could imagine if you had a spreadsheet that already had 20 invoices in it, and it just went and deleted all of those and said, “Oh, let me clear this template out for you and just add that one,” you’ve got the option there to go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Back up a minute, pal. Undo that.” And so that’s why it’s prompting there. So I can say, “Done.” Cool. It goes, “Hey, yeah, let me know if there’s anything else.” And back over to me, right? I can come in and make changes here as, as I, as I, as I see fit.
It’s not gonna go and override me. Uh, you know, I can then save the document and forward it on to accounts. Now, the other part of Excel which is quite useful with Copilot, if you are more of an expert user in Copilot, um, working with maybe complicated formulas, is that it can work with formulas in a spreadsheet.
And so if you’re given a, a spreadsheet with a very complicated formula in it, you can use Copilot to help you understand that formula. Uh, there’s nothing worse than reading someone else’s code. Um, and so that can help you in that respect. But it’s also really good at writing, uh, complicated formulas.
And so, you know, we could tell it, “Hey, I wanna look at this information. Um, you know, summarize this by category. You know, what are our, what are our biggest expenses this month? Where are we spending too much? Are there any outliers?” And you can go back and forth with the chat right here on the side.
Um, you can start a new chat if you want. It’s still got the context of this workbook, so that’s all it’s gonna kind of be going off and referencing unless you direct to do other things. Um, but you can see here it’s got some, some, you know, add some title insights, right?
The… Some of these things are generic, but what I would say is even though that seems really generic, that could be an interesting way to, to, you know, get a second lens on some of the stuff you have. Um, I use that kind of functionality elsewhere, um, to give me perspectives on things.
And look, it’s not a real person. Uh, you know, don’t be fooled into thinking that. But it can take on the language of someone in that role and, and so that translates quite nicely into some kind of alternative, uh, experiences of, of, of a given thing. And so, uh, I, I’d suggest, you know, it’s worth looking at at the very least.
Um, but you can see here, like straight out of the box, you got some cool features at your hands. Now, equally, that was just a PDF I had. I gave it the PDF. There’s no reason I couldn’t say here, “Hey, I got an invoice this morning from Redgum.
Please go grab it and extract it.” It can go and find the email, get the attachment, download it, extract the details, and plug it into the spreadsheet. And so you can start, you know, combining a couple of these bits and pieces together as you go to really unlock some of those workflows.
Now, given we could do that in the 365 Copilot app, in theory, you could do that from your mobile now. You could say, “Hey, go to SharePoint and get a copy of the invoice extraction template. Go get the email from Redgum this morning and extract it and create it and save it to my OneDrive and give me the link.
I’ll review it when I get back to the office.” And it’ll go and do it. And so now you didn’t even have to think about it. That one minute you have to go doing QA can be done whenever you want. You don’t even need to wait the 60 seconds it took for this thing to extract, right?
And so, you know, you can see how as you get more comfortable, these little workflows are gonna start to present themselves. Um, but yeah. Look, that’s, that’s Excel. That’s kind of, you know, that’s the, the main things you might look to use on, on day one. Uh, so yeah. That’s it.
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