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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/sharepoint-cloud-copilot.rst

⇱ Use Microsoft Copilot Studio to talk to your SharePoint Data via CData Connect AI

Use Microsoft Copilot Studio to talk to your SharePoint Data via CData Connect AI

👁 Cameron Leblanc
Cameron Leblanc
Senior Technology Evangelist
Leverage the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable Microsoft Copilot Studio to securely answer questions and take actions on your SharePoint data for you.

Microsoft Copilot Studio is a no-code/low-code platform for creating AI Agents that can automate tasks, answer questions, and assist with various business processes. When combined with CData Connect AI Remote MCP, you can leverage Copilot Studio to interact with your SharePoint data in real-time. This article outlines the process of connecting to SharePoint using Connect AI Remote MCP and creating a connection in Copilot Studio to interact with your SharePoint data.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to SharePoint data. The CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Microsoft Copilot Studio and SharePoint. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your SharePoint data using Microsoft Copilot Studio, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to SharePoint. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested SharePoint data.

In this article, we show how to build a agent in Microsoft Copilot Studio to conversational explore (or Vibe Query) your data. The connectivity principals apply to any Copilot agent. With Connect AI you can build workflows and agents with access to live SharePoint data, plus hundreds of other sources.

About SharePoint Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from SharePoint has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access data from a wide range of SharePoint versions, including Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and above, and SharePoint Online.
  • Access all of SharePoint thanks to support for Hidden and Lookup columns.
  • Recursively scan folders to create a relational model of all SharePoint data.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to upload and download documents and attachments.

Most customers rely on CData solutions to integrate SharePoint data into their database or data warehouse, while others integrate their SharePoint data with preferred data tools, like Power BI, Tableau, or Excel.

For more information on how customers are solving problems with CData's SharePoint solutions, refer to our blog: Drivers in Focus: Collaboration Tools.


Getting Started


Step 1: Configure SharePoint Connectivity for Microsoft Copilot Studio

Connectivity to SharePoint from Microsoft Copilot Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with SharePoint data from Microsoft Copilot Studio, we start by creating and configuring a SharePoint connection in CData Connect AI.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Connections and click Add Connection 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "SharePoint" from the Add Connection panel 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SharePoint.

    Set the URL property to the base SharePoint site or to a sub-site. This allows you to query any lists and other SharePoint entities defined for the site or sub-site.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid SharePoint user credentials when using SharePoint On-Premise.

    If you are connecting to SharePoint Online, set the SharePointEdition to SHAREPOINTONLINE along with the User and Password connection string properties. For more details on connecting to SharePoint Online, see the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
    Click Save & Test
  4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SharePoint Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

With the connection configured, we are ready to connect to SharePoint data from Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Step 2: Connect Microsoft Copilot Studio to CData Connect AI

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect AI MCP connection in Microsoft Copilot Studio:

  1. Under Tools, click Add tool, then click + New Tool. 👁 Add a Tool to the Copilot agent
  2. In the Add Tool window, search for and click CData Connect AI. 👁 Select Model Context Protocol
  3. In the Connect to CData Connect AI window, click Create to authenticate your connection CData Connect AI using OAuth authentication. 👁 Configure the MCP Tool
  4. Click Add and configure to add the CData Connect AI Tool to your agent. 👁 Create a new connection for the MCP Tool

Optional: Give the AI Agent context

This step establishes the AI Agent's role and provides context for the conversation through the Instructions property in the Agent. By providing instructions that explicitly informs the agent about its role as an MCP Server expert and lists the available tools, you can enhance the agent's understanding and response accuracy. For example, you can set the System Message to: 

You are an expert at using the MCP Client tool connected which is the CData Connect AI MCP Server. Always search thoroughly and use the most relevant MCP Client tool for each query. Below are the available tools and a description of each:
queryData: Execute SQL queries against connected data sources and retrieve results. When you use the queryData tool, ensure you use the following format for the table name: catalog.schema.tableName
getCatalogs: Retrieve a list of available connections from CData Connect AI. The connection names should be used as catalog names in other tools and in any queries to CData Connect AI. Use the `getSchemas` tool to get a list of available schemas for a specific catalog.
getSchemas: Retrieve a list of available database schemas from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog. Use the `getTables` tool to get a list of available tables for a specific catalog and schema.
getTables: Retrieve a list of available database tables from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog and schema. Use the `getColumns` tool to get a list of available columns for a specific table.
getColumns: Retrieve a list of available database columns from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog, schema, and table.
getProcedures: Retrieve a list of stored procedures from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog and schema
getProcedureParameters: Retrieve a list of stored procedure parameters from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog, schema, and procedure.
executeProcedure: Execute stored procedures with parameters against connected data sources

Step 3: Explore Live SharePoint Data with Microsoft Copilot Studio

With the Agent created in Microsoft Copilot Studio and the MCP tool connected, you can now interact with your SharePoint data using Microsoft Copilot Studio. The MCP tool allows you to send queries and receive responses from the SharePoint data source in real-time.

Open the chat window in your Microsoft Copilot Studio Agent to begin interacting with your SharePoint data. You can ask questions, retrieve data, and perform actions on your SharePoint data using the MCP tool: 👁 Interact with your data using the MCP Tool in Microsoft Copilot Studio

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today!