Vlad Catrinescu's Blog

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025 are the best time of the year to invest in your IT career. Whether your goals include getting certified, staying ahead of Microsoft’s AI and agent wave, or simply sharpening the skills you rely on every day — this video breaks down the top learning deals you should know about. Some go as high as 60% to 80% off, which means you can save hundreds of dollars on world-class training.

Deals Covered in This Video

Pluralsight: 60% Off Individual Plans
Use code BLACKFRIDAY60

Pluralsight for Business: 40% Off
Code BLACKFRIDAY40

Udemy: Up to 80% Off
Be sure to check the reviews — quality varies.

IW Mentor (by  @WonderLaura  ): 40% Off (Nov 28–Dec 5)
Amazing Power Apps + Power Automate training for information workers.
PPCC Video

Voitanos (by  @Andrew_Connell  ): 30–42% Off (Nov 28–Dec 5)
Microsoft 365 developer training: SPFx, Teams Dev, Copilot Extensibility.

Watch my 100+ courses on Pluralsight

Video SummaryBlack Friday is the best time to invest in your skills—whether you’re aiming for certifications, learning AI and Copilot, or sharpening everyday IT skills, this week offers massive discounts from top training providers.Udemy is slashing prices up to 80%, with many tech courses as low as $9.99 USD. Great for learning specific skills—but check reviews since anyone can publish courses there.Pluralsight is leading the charge with 60% off individual plans (annual subscription drops from $468 to $187) and 40% off business plans. Use codes BLACKFRIDAY60 for individuals and BLACKFRIDAY40 for teams. This includes certification prep, hands-on labs, and upcoming Microsoft 365 Copilot courses.Power Platform fans, don’t miss IW Mentor by Laura Rogers: 40% off all courses from Nov 28 to Dec 5. Practical, hands-on training for Power Apps and Power Automate.M365 developers, Voitanos by Andrew Connell is gold: 30% off everything during Black Friday week, and 42% off for the first 24 hours. Perfect for SharePoint Framework, Teams development, and Copilot extensibility.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

Whether your goals for 2025 or 2026 include getting certified, keeping up with AI and agents, or simply sharpening the skills you rely on every single day, this is the best week of the year to invest in yourself. A ton of top training providers are running Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, and some of them are as high as 60% to 80% off, which means you can save hundreds of dollars on world-class learning. These offers are limited-time, so move fast. In this video, I’ll break down the best learning deals you should know about for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025.

Let’s start with the platform I know best—Pluralsight. I’ll admit I’m a bit biased because I’ve created over a hundred courses on Pluralsight and have zero plans of slowing down. But there’s a reason I keep building there: it’s one of the best places to learn if you want real IT skills that actually move your career forward. If your goal is to get certified—Microsoft, Google, AWS, CompTIA, or security—Pluralsight gives you structured learning paths, certification prep, practice tests, and everything you need in one place. If you’re trying to update your cloud skills, especially on providers like Azure or fundamental IT skills, the cloud hands-on labs let you practice safely without breaking anything in production. Honestly, the labs alone justify the subscription for most IT professionals.

Now, the Black Friday deal this year is pretty wild. You can take 60% off your Pluralsight plan, dropping the full annual subscription from $468 down to $187—that’s $280 saved. You can choose a cheaper plan than the complete plan if you want, but at this price, I’d grab the complete one because it unlocks everything, including all of my upcoming Microsoft 365 Copilot certification courses. For individual plans, use the code BLACKFRIDAY60 at checkout. I’ve also added a quick link in the YouTube description so you can jump straight to it. If you’re buying for a team or your whole company, you can save 40% on business plans. Those come with advanced features like admin analytics, team insights, and the ability to create custom company channels. For that offer, use code BLACKFRIDAY40 at checkout. Again, you’ll find the link in the description. And if you’ve got someone in your family who wants to break into IT, this is honestly one of the best gifts you can give them. A full year of Pluralsight at this price gives them access to certifications, cloud skills, hands-on labs, and a clear roadmap into the industry. It’s the kind of investment that can change someone’s career trajectory—and Black Friday makes that gift affordable.

Next up is Udemy. Most of you already know it as the giant independent marketplace where you can find courses on pretty much anything—cloud, security, Python, taxes, woodworking, social media, you name it. Right now, many of their courses are up to 80% off for Black Friday. If you use the link in the description, you’ll see tech courses dropping to $9.99 USD or about $12.99 Canadian, which is a fantastic price point if you want to learn something very specific. One quick caution, though: unlike Pluralsight, Udemy doesn’t vet authors. Anyone can sign up and publish a course, which means quality can vary a lot. So, check the reviews, preview the content, and pick instructors with proven ratings before you buy.

Next, we have IW Mentor by Laura Rogers—an incredible Microsoft MVP who’s been teaching Power Apps and Power Automate long before the Power Platform became this popular. Her training is practical, hands-on, and perfect if you want to build real solutions without getting lost in technical jargon. Her Black Friday sale runs from November 28 to December 5, and you’ll be able to save 40% on all her courses. You’ll find a link in the description so you can jump in as soon as it opens. If you want a preview of how awesome she is, I recently posted a video with Laura from the Power Platform Community Conference, and I’ll drop that link too.

Finally, we have Voitanos by Microsoft MVP Andrew Connell—hands down one of the best trainers in the Microsoft 365 developer space. If you want to learn the SharePoint Framework, Teams development, or build extensibility for Microsoft 365 Copilot, his resources are the gold standard. When people ask me where to start as an M365 developer, Voitanos is always first on the list. For Black Friday, he’s running a sale from November 28 to December 5: everything is 30% off, and for the first 24 hours, it’s 42% off—so even better. If your goal is to learn M365 development, that first day is the best time to grab it.

Make the most of these offers, and if you want to keep learning, check out my video on everything you need to know about the new Microsoft 365 Copilot certifications. It breaks down the three new certifications and two new applied skills Microsoft just released, so you know exactly where to focus next. And of course, subscribe to the channel—I’ve got a lot more content coming on certifications, M365, and the Power Platform. See you there!

Microsoft just launched five brand-new Microsoft 365 Copilot credentials — including three certifications (AB-900, AB-730, AB-731) and two applied skills — and one of the beta exams even comes with an 80% discount.

In this video, I break down each credential, what they cover, and who they’re meant for so you can plan your 2025 and 2026 certification path confidently.

What We’ll Cover
AB-900: Copilot & agent admin fundamentals for IT Pros
AB-730: AI Business Professional for business users
AB-731: AI Transformation Leader for managers & decision makers
APL-6501: Generate reports using AI Research Agents
APL-6500: Streamline workflows using Copilot Chat

Whether you’re an IT admin, business user, or leader, there’s finally a Copilot credential designed for your role.

Watch my 100+ courses on Pluralsight

Video SummaryBig news from Microsoft Learn! Right before Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft dropped three brand-new certifications and two applied skills focused on Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI. For the first time, these credentials include those for business users and leaders, not just technical personnel.The new certifications include:
• AB-900 – Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals
• AB-730 – AI Business Professional
• AB-731 – AI Transformation Leader
Each costs about $99, and they’re in beta with an opportunity to save 80% using special discount codes.Two free applied skills for hands-on practice:
• Generate reports with AI research agents (APL-6501)
• Streamline business workflows with AI chat (APL-6500)
These are self-paced, free, and unproctored—perfect for building confidence before the certifications.What’s inside the exams? Expect topics like Microsoft 365 core services, Copilot administration, data protection and governance, prompt engineering, responsible AI, and even Azure AI services for leaders. Business-focused exams emphasize practical AI use cases—drafting documents, managing prompts, and driving transformation.Act fast for discounts and beta perks! Use codes AB900GOALS26, AB730SMORE25, and AB731MARKERS25 for 80% off while seats last (limited to the first 300 per exam). The sooner these exams are taken, the faster they’ll move out of beta.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

Microsoft 365 Copilot certifications are finally here! Right before Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Learn went big with not one, not two, but three new Microsoft certifications. You’ll notice a brand-new badge design because, for the first time ever, we have certifications for business users and business leaders. Up until today, Microsoft has only offered technical certifications. Now, we have our first business user certifications with this new design, which looks pretty cool, to be honest. Alongside these, there are two brand-new free Microsoft Applied Skills focused on M365 Copilot. In this video, we’ll cover the five new credentials—three certifications and two applied skills—and even share a way to get 80% off those certifications, but you’ll have to act fast.

At a high level, the first new certification is Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals. The second is AI Transformation Leader, and the third is AI Business Professional. Next, we have our first applied skill: Generate Reports with AI Research Agents, and finally, Streamline Business Workflows with AI Chat. We’ll dive into each one, and if you’re only interested in a specific credential, you can use the chapters in the video to navigate directly to it.

Let’s start with the Microsoft 365 Certified Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals exam, code AB900. For those following the channel, you’ve seen this exam code before because we had a hint it was coming, and I did a video on it. Originally, it was called “AI Workplace Fundamentals”—quite a name change from what we heard before. This exam costs $99 USD or less, depending on your country. In Canada, it’s a bit cheaper, but the highest price is $99. The audience for this exam is primarily administrators, as the name suggests, but I believe pre-sales professionals could also take it. I think this exam can appeal to a broader audience than just admins. I’m actually taking it on Monday, the first day of Ignite, so stay tuned for my reaction video right after.

According to Microsoft, as a candidate for this certification, you should be familiar with Microsoft 365, including core services, security, identity and access, data protection, and governance, along with Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents. You should also know the admin centers used to manage Microsoft 365 workloads such as Exchange Online, SharePoint in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview. Experience with AI-driven productivity tools and modern IT management practices is required. You must be able to identify roles, core features, and objects in Microsoft 365—such as users, groups, teams, sites, and libraries—and understand core security features like authentication methods, conditional access policies, and single sign-on.

The exam measures three main skill areas:

Identify core features and objects of Microsoft 365 services (30–35%)Understand data protection and governance tasks for Microsoft 365 and Copilot (35–40%)Perform basic administrative tasks for Copilot and agents (25–30%)

The first section includes licensing, organization configurations via the M365 admin center, and identifying objects to configure in Exchange Online, SharePoint, and Teams admin centers. It also covers Microsoft 365 security principles like Zero Trust, authentication, authorization, threat protection, and Microsoft Defender XDR. You’ll need to understand Entra features such as conditional access policies, MFA, and Privileged Identity Management. There’s overlap with the SC-900 exam, but that’s expected since security is critical.

The second section dives into data protection and governance tasks for M365 and Copilot, including Microsoft Purview Information Protection, DLP, Insider Risk Management, Communication Compliance, DSPM for AI, and Data Lifecycle Management. It also covers sensitivity labels, data classification, retention policies, and Copilot-specific topics like how Copilot accesses data, how Microsoft Graph influences responses, permissions, and Responsible AI principles. You’ll also need to identify sensitive information using Purview Data Explorer and troubleshoot oversharing in SharePoint with advanced management tools.

The third section focuses on Copilot and agent administration tasks: comparing built-in capabilities of Copilot and agents, understanding licensing models (monthly vs. pay-as-you-go), enabling or disabling Copilot features, and identifying use cases for researcher and analyst agents. You’ll also need to know how to assign Copilot licenses, manage billing policies, monitor usage and adoption with Copilot Analytics, manage prompts (saving, sharing, scheduling, deleting), configure user access to agents, create agents, set approval processes, and monitor agents.

Next is the AI Business Professional certification, exam code AB730, priced at $99 or less. The audience includes administrators and business users. Candidates should have experience using generative AI-powered productivity tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot as a researcher and an analyst. You’ll use AI to improve daily work, drive business outcomes, and make informed decisions without coding or building AI apps. A basic understanding of Microsoft 365 and familiarity with apps like Outlook, Word, Teams, PowerPoint, and Excel is expected, along with knowledge of common business processes such as drafting emails, creating presentations, generating images, and managing documents.

Skills measured include:

Understand generative AI fundamentals (25–30%)Manage prompts and conversations using AI (35–40%)Draft and analyze business content using AI (25–30%)

You’ll need to understand Copilot’s privacy and security, context and its effect on responses, differences between chat and agent experiences, use cases for creating agents, and Copilot features across M365 apps. Responsible AI practices, risks like fabrications and prompt injections, and verification steps such as citation checks and human review are also covered. For prompts, you’ll learn how to create effective prompts, reference resources, save, schedule, share, delete, and rename chats, add conversations to notebooks, and decide when to use the agent store versus creating a new agent. You’ll also create agents using templates, configure settings, and share agents with team members. Finally, you’ll draft business documents and communications, generate documents from prompts or existing files, create management summaries, move data between apps, use Copilot for meetings, collaborate with Copilot Pages, and understand memory and instructions.

The third certification is AI Transformation Leader, exam code AB731, also $99 or less. This one targets business leaders responsible for guiding transformation and innovation. Candidates should understand how to recognize AI opportunities, identify tools and resources, plan adoption, optimize processes, and drive innovation using M365 Copilot and Azure AI services. You’re expected to demonstrate AI fluency, strategic vision, and leadership in AI adoption without coding. Familiarity with Microsoft 365, Azure AI services, and general AI capabilities is required, along with experience in change management.

Skills measured include:

Identify the business value of generative AI solutions (35–40%)Identify benefits, capabilities, and opportunities for Microsoft AI apps and services (35–40%)Identify an implementation and adoption strategy for Microsoft AI apps and services (20–25%)

Topics include foundational concepts of generative AI, differences between GenAI and other AI types, selecting solutions for business needs, differences between fine-tuned and pre-trained models, cost drivers like tokens and ROI, challenges such as fabrications and bias, and identifying business value scenarios. You’ll also cover prompt engineering, grounding solutions, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), secure AI, and machine learning value. Copilot-specific topics include mapping business processes to Copilot, understanding differences between versions, capabilities across apps and platforms, Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Graph. Azure AI services like Vision, Search, and Foundry are included, along with responsible AI principles, governance, AI councils, adoption teams, champions programs, barriers to adoption, and licensing types.

Finally, Microsoft released two free applied skills:

Generate Reports with AI Research Agents (APL6501)Streamline Business Workflows with AI Chat (APL6500)

These are hands-on, self-paced, and unproctored, available anytime at no cost. The first focuses on creating business reports using the researcher agent—defining scope, identifying resources, drafting, refining, and finalizing reports. The second focuses on streamlining workflows using Copilot Chat—web productivity tasks, drafting documents in Word, creating presentations in PowerPoint, managing emails in Outlook, and exploring data in Excel.

Microsoft also offers 80% off beta exams for the first 300 people per exam using these codes:

AB900GOALS26 for AB900AB730SMORE25 for AB730AB731MARKERS25 for AB731

Act fast to take advantage of these discounts and help move the exams out of beta sooner.

The MS-900 retirement has officially been delayed. Microsoft has moved the retirement date to March 31, 2026, giving learners, organizations, and Microsoft partners more time to complete the exam.

In this video, I cover:
Why the MS-900 retirement was extended
How the new AB-900 exam fits into the timeline
Why MB-910 and MB-920 are still retiring this year
Whether you should still take the MS-900 in 2025

The MS-900 is a fundamentals exam; it never expires, and it will always stay on your transcript — so if you planned to take it, this extension makes it the perfect time.

Want help preparing? Check out my MS-900 course on Pluralsight

Video SummaryGreat news for MS-900 takers! Microsoft has extended the retirement date of the MS-900 exam to March 31, 2026, giving you extra time to get certified.This extension only applies to MS-900—the MB-910 and MB-920 Dynamics 365 exams are still retiring as planned at the end of this year.Why the delay? Likely because the new AB-900 exam, focused on Microsoft Copilot fundamentals, just entered beta on November 14, 2025, and Microsoft needs time to align partner requirements.MS-900 still matters! It’s a fundamentals exam that never expires and helps organizations maintain their Microsoft Partner designation—so it’s worth taking if you haven’t yet.Want to pass on the first try? Check out my Pluralsight courses (links in the description) and keep an eye out for Black Friday deals to grab them at a discount!

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

If you’ve been stressing about the retirement of the MS-900 exam at the end of the year, I have good news for you—Microsoft just pushed the retirement date to 2026. So, if you wanted to get MS-900 certified but had no idea it was going to retire, it’s even more important that you pay attention to this update.

To recap, not that long ago, Microsoft announced that it would retire the MS-900 exam alongside the MB-910 and MB-920 by the end of the year. If you missed that announcement, you should have followed my channel because I did a dedicated video about it. But just a few days ago, Microsoft extended the MS-900 retirement date to March 31, 2026. This gives us a little more than four months from when I’m recording this video to get your certification. However, this extension only applies to the MS-900—it does not apply to the MB-910 or MB-920, which are the Dynamics 365 exams.

Now, you might wonder why the retirement was delayed. Usually, when Microsoft announces these things, its decision is final. At the end of the day, only Microsoft knows why, but I believe it has to do with the AB-900 exam, which is the exam that replaces MS-900. If you don’t know what AB-900 is, it’s part of the three new certifications Microsoft has released for Microsoft Copilot. I’ll have a link in the description for you to learn more about it. In short, AB-900 is the exam that’s replacing MS-900. This exam went into beta on November 14, 2025, so it’s brand new. In the usual post where Liberty talks about the beta and how long you have to take it, we know that the beta will run until at least January 3, 2026—a few days after MS-900 was originally scheduled to retire.

Some of you might think it’s not the end of the world if the two exams don’t overlap, but for some divisions at Microsoft, it kind of is. Outside of Microsoft Learn, we have another big organization—the Microsoft Partner Network. The MS-900 is one of the exams that help an organization become a Microsoft partner. I’m not an expert in the partner program—that requires a separate PhD—but to attain the Modern Work Solutions designation, you need to pass a series of exams, and MS-900 is one of them. If the exams didn’t overlap, the Microsoft Partner team wouldn’t have time to update requirements, and partners wouldn’t have time to get the new certification before losing their designation. So, in my opinion, they needed more time to update the list and let people take the new exam before MS-900 retires.

Of course, this is good news for everyone—there’s nothing negative here. I’m happy to share only good news for once, even if we’re talking about retirement. The bad news was in the previous video, when MS-900 was scheduled to retire sooner. For this one, let’s focus on the positive: if you wanted to take MS-900, remember it’s a fundamentals exam that never expires. It will always show up on your transcript. So, if you were hesitating because of the deadline, this is your chance to take it.

Also, as a shameless self-promotion, if you want to pass on the first try, make sure you check out my courses on Pluralsight—I’ll have a link in the description below. With Black Friday and December coming up, I’m sure there will be plenty of sales, so you can access these courses at a great price. I’ll make a dedicated video about that closer to Black Friday, but I can’t share details yet. Check the link in the description below. And on the screen right now, you’ll find a video that talks about the upcoming Microsoft 365 Copilot certification. So, if you don’t care about MS-900 because it’s retiring, that video will cover your next certification.

Want to generate PDFs from Power Apps using Power Automate without paying for premium connectors? In this real-world demo, Microsoft MVP Laura Rogers shows how to build a Statement of Work generator using Power Apps, Power Automate, OneDrive, and SharePoint — with no code and no extra license requirements!

Check out Laura’s training courses

Watch my 100+ courses on Pluralsight

Video SummaryPower Apps + Power Automate = Better Together. Each Power Platform product is powerful on its own, but combining them unlocks real business solutions. Laura showed us how easy it is to integrate them without overcomplicating things.You Don’t Always Need a Flow. Common tasks like sending emails or updating multiple lists can often be done directly in Power Apps using connectors or patching—no flow required! Keep it simple when you can.When You Do Use a Flow, Keep It Lean. Laura’s demo used a Power Apps trigger and passed just one parameter—the project ID. From there, the flow grabbed all the data it needed, generated an HTML file, converted it to PDF via OneDrive (free!), and saved it in SharePoint.Smart UI Design Matters. The Power App showed progress while the flow ran, then revealed the “View PDF” button only when the file was ready. Wrapping the flow call in a variable and using conditional visibility made the experience smooth and intuitive.Training and learning resources are key. Laura offers over 45 hours of training on Power Apps, Power Automate, SharePoint, and more at iwmentor.com. If you want to build solutions like this, her courses are a fantastic resource!

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

Each product inside the Power Platform is amazing on its own, but most enterprises get even more value when they use them together. What if we try to use two of my favorite products in the Power Platform—Power Automate, number one in my heart, and Power Apps, a close second—together to build a real business solution?

Today, I’m super happy to be joined by Microsoft MVP and good friend Laura Rogers. Laura, thank you so much for being here.
“Thanks for having me.”

Today we’re at the Power Platform Community Conference recording this, and this week you had a session called Power Automate and Power Apps Better Together. I think that was the title, right?
“Yes.”

And you told me right before recording that you showed something really cool and that there are different ways to actually integrate them. So what I want you to show me is everything about this because usually I only do the Power Automate stuff. I want to learn how people call it from Power Apps.
“Okay. Well, you may notice that when you’re in Power Apps, you actually have a Power Automate section that lets you integrate Power Apps and Power Automate. But my whole session was really about the concept of all the other ways that you can use this integration without having to use that specific way.”

A couple of things that I went over were: you can send emails directly from a Power App using the Office 365 Outlook connector, and write some functions so that it instantly goes straight from the Power App without needing a flow. That’s one common thing that people think they need a flow to do.

Another thing is you can just use patching. So if you had a situation where somebody fills out a form and you need to not just submit that one form, but maybe create a couple of other things in other lists automatically, you can just use patching from your Power App. Those are common things that people might need to automate, and again, you can avoid using a flow altogether.

But even if you do need a flow, you could still do it a different way. You could have a flow that triggers when the item gets created in SharePoint, Dataverse, or wherever your item is. Your trigger can just be based on the item getting created or modified. So yet again, you don’t need to use this integration for any of those scenarios.

That’s a big question I had in my workshop on Sunday. People asked me this exact scenario: Is it better to do it from the Power App or from the data source? And I’m the team data source. This way it’s a bit more separate. If something needs to be debugged, I have two different systems—one that saves into SharePoint and one that triggers in SharePoint. I’m more team “keep them separate.” But I guess it depends on the scenario.
“It definitely does. I like to try and keep it as simple as possible—have fewer moving pieces. So in situations where I can just have a command that sends an email straight from the app and that’s all that’s needed, something simple, if you only have one action, absolutely.”

So yeah, it’s definitely a per-situation decision that you’re going to make.
“Yeah.”

Well, you told me you built something cool in your session—a full process.
“Yes. So I’ll go ahead and run it and then show you what it does, and then we’ll dig in and I’ll show you how I built it. So again, I was talking about all these reasons not to use this integration, but here’s a good example. I have customers and a list of customers in here, and then each customer has a list of projects. So here are all the Adventure Works projects. For each project, I can go to the form with all the information about that project. And then here’s where the magic happens: I’m working with a new customer, I’ve got a new project, and I need to generate a new statement of work. So I just click ‘Create Statement of Work.’”

You can see the little dots going across. What it’s doing is kicking off a flow that’s creating a file, putting the data about that project in the file, and then converting it to PDF. It just finished running, so now this little “View PDF” button appears.
“Okay, wow, it already opened.”
“Yeah. So there is the statement of work that it just generated based on the data in that form, and now it’s a PDF file.”

That is really awesome because in the UI, you can see that it’s working, and then the other button appears at the end.
“That is really cool. Can you add a loading screen?”
“Yeah, you could.”
“Can you get the ‘Working on it’ GIF? You know, remember the SharePoint ‘Working on it’ GIF?”
“Oh yes.”
“Can you add that in there?”
“There is actually a control in Power Apps that does that functionality.”

So it took me to where the file was created in SharePoint. That’s the library where it got created. So that’s how it works. Now let’s go look at what the flow is actually doing.

This flow is based on the trigger called “When Power Apps calls a flow.” You decide what information you want to send over from the Power App to the flow. The simplest way is you don’t need to send all these separate fields—if you have the ID of the item, that’s all you need. So all I’m sending over is the project ID from the Power App.

The flow uses the “Get Item” action to retrieve all the data about that project. Since this is a parent-child relationship (a customer might have multiple projects), I have a lookup field in the project to the customer. So then I do another “Get Item” to get that one customer using the customer lookup ID. Now I have all the information about the project and the customer, and I can use all that in my statement of work.

What I did was create an HTML file—a simple, no-frills, no-premium-connector way of generating a file. I used Copilot to create the HTML for me because I didn’t feel like writing all this code. I told Copilot to create a statement of work in HTML and gave it a list of all the fields I wanted to insert. It wrote the HTML and put placeholders where the parameters would go. I pasted that code into a Compose action, inserted the fields like customer name, project start, project end, and project description, and then used the free “Convert to PDF” option in OneDrive.

So I create the HTML file temporarily in OneDrive, then use the Convert File action to convert it to PDF. After conversion, I create the PDF file in my Statement of Work library in SharePoint using the file name and content. I also created a sharing link for that file because it’s more reliable across devices. One thing I forgot to add is deleting the temporary OneDrive file so they don’t pile up.

Finally, I respond back to the Power App with the sharing link. In Power Apps, the button uses flow.run() syntax to call the flow. To wait for the flow and get information back, you wrap it in a variable using the Set function. Then, when the variable is populated with the URL, the “View PDF” button appears. I also set the display mode so the button grays out after use.

For the back button, I clear the variable so the next time you open another project, it doesn’t show the previous link.

That’s the whole solution: kicking off the flow, waiting for it to come back, and making the UI interactive so users only see what works.

I love how cool you built it—it looks so simple now. At first, I thought it would be complicated with a lot of steps, but this was super easy.
“Oh, great. I’m glad you liked it.”

One final question: Do you do Power Automate training like me?
“Yes.”
“What do you think about Microsoft moving the actions back under, like in classic?”
“Oh, they’re changing the interface. You missed the keynote—they’re bringing it back like in classic instead of being on the left. Being able to see all that information, especially in training screenshots, is huge. I love that.”
“I like it, but I feel like I have to update a lot of things now.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s so true. We both do. By the end of the year, the actions will be under a classic-like designer but with a modern look.”

Thank you so much. You mentioned you do a lot of training—can you tell everybody where they can find it?
“Sure. My company is IWmentor, which stands for Information Worker Mentor. It’s iwmentor.com. I have about 45+ hours of training on SharePoint, Power Apps, Power Automate, OneDrive, Planner, Copilot, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft Lists, and more. I have advanced classes and an Ultimate plan that includes everything. You can subscribe monthly or yearly. I have a huge Cyber Monday sale coming up with a 40% discount.”

Awesome. I’ll make sure to have a link in the description below so you can access it easily. If you want to build cool things like this in a simple way, check it out. If you’re a business professional or information worker, there’s no better training out there. Thank you so much for your time.

For everybody here, if you enjoyed this video, please like it, subscribe to the channel, and on the screen right now, you’ll see another video we recorded at the Power Platform Community Conference. See you there.

The 2025 Power Platform Community Conference keynote just wrapped up — and Microsoft dropped some MAJOR news.

From “low code is dead” to the AI-powered rebirth of the Power Platform, this video breaks down all the key announcements from Charles Lamanna’s keynote — in just 15 minutes.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
New Power Platform growth stats
Copilot Studio updates + new logo
New AI Agents — Data Entry, Data Exploration & Code Agents
Generative Pages and how they change app creation
Updated Power Automate Designer & Agent Flows
New Copilot Studio Testing Tools + M365 Copilot Agents

If you’re building with Power Apps, Power Automate, or Copilot Studio, this recap will get you up to speed on everything new — and why it matters.

Watch my 100+ courses on Pluralsight.

Video SummaryLow-code is evolving, not dying. Microsoft declared that “low-code as we know it is dead” — but don’t panic! It’s being reborn with AI at the core. Makers now use AI-infused tools to build full-stack apps faster, smarter, and with less manual effort. You can still drag and drop, but now you can also tweak the React code behind the scenes if needed.Copilot Studio is booming. Usage exploded from 50,000 to 200,000 organizations in just a year! To celebrate, Microsoft gave it a fresh new logo (and yes, Charles Lammana joked about reimbursing tattoo updates). More importantly, Copilot Studio now includes powerful testing tools to simulate user sessions and validate agent responses before going live.Power Apps just got a major glow-up. Model-driven apps are no longer boring! With AI agents like the Data Entry Agent and Data Exploration Agent, you can auto-fill forms from emails or PDFs and explore data using natural language. Generative pages now let you build entire apps from Dataverse tables in minutes — with full code access for fine-tuning.Power Automate is shifting toward agent flows. Microsoft is focusing heavily on agent flows, which are key to building intelligent agents that do more than chat. The designer UI is changing again (trainers, brace yourselves), and AI Builder prompts now let you extract data from images and documents. Still, standalone Power Automate deserves more love — and I’m on a mission to make that happen!Microsoft 365 Copilot can now build, not just assist. Two new agents in the Frontier program — the Workflows Agent and App Builder Agent — let you create cloud flows and full-stack apps directly inside Copilot. No need to touch the code unless you want to. It’s productivity meets development, and it’s rolling out now!

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

Hello everyone, Vlad here, reporting directly from Las Vegas, where I just stepped out of the Power Platform Community Conference keynote. And I don’t want to alarm you, but Microsoft just announced that low-code as we know it is dead — and the Power Platform has been reborn in the era of AI.

I’m not joking. That’s exactly what Microsoft said. Over the next few minutes, I’ll walk you through what was announced at the keynote — from new logos to new agents and features — and more importantly, why they matter and what you should try out right away.

The keynote was led by Charles Lamanna, President of Business and Industry Copilot at Microsoft, and someone we all know as the longtime leader of the Power Platform. Now, I know many of you love numbers, and while we didn’t get as many this year, there were still a few worth mentioning. First, the Power Platform now has 56 million monthly active users — up from 48 million in 2024 and 33 million in 2023. That’s a 70% growth over two years, which is incredible. Year-over-year growth is at 17%, showing that while it’s still growing, it’s starting to stabilize — a sign of maturity in the enterprise space. Considering Microsoft 365 has over 300 million monthly active users, there’s still plenty of room to grow. Charles even said he’d love to hit 500 million monthly active users, though that might take another year or two.

Another big number: Copilot Studio. Last year, 50,000 companies used it. This year, that number jumped to 200,000 organizations creating agents. To celebrate, Copilot Studio got a brand-new logo. Charles joked that if anyone has a tattoo of the old logo, they can send him an expense receipt for the new one, and he’ll reimburse it. He also apologized for all the stickers, shirts, and tattoos with the old icon — and again, said you can send a reimbursement for the new tattoo if you want. I won’t put my word on that, but that’s what he said!

Now, let’s talk features. The keynote emphasized that the Power Platform is changing — and so are our roles as makers. Microsoft said low-code is dead, but really, it’s evolving. We’re not just dragging and dropping anymore. We’re using AI to empower makers to do more. Even someone like me, who doesn’t know React, can use AI tools combined with low-code and no-code to build full-stack applications. We’ll get into the tools in just a minute.

Microsoft took a clever approach this year by revisiting use cases from previous conferences (2022–2024) and showing how those same solutions would look today — powered by AI. What used to be complex is now much easier.

Let’s start with Power Apps. The demos focused on model-driven apps, and I was genuinely surprised by how good they looked. I used to say that if you wanted a pretty app, go canvas; if you wanted something boring but functional, go model-driven. I can’t say that anymore — the new model-driven apps look fantastic.

One standout feature was the Data Entry Agent. Filling out forms is never fun, especially when the data already exists in a PDF or email. Now, you can drag and drop that document, and the agent will extract the data and fill the form for you. That’s real AI value. We also saw the Data Exploration Agent, which lets you filter data and create charts using plain language. It’s incredibly powerful.

Then came generative pages — a game changer. You provide your Dataverse tables and describe what the app should do, and it builds the entire solution for you. It uses React code in the backend, and since you have access to that code, you can make adjustments if needed. It’s a beautiful collaboration between app makers and developers, and it’s solution-aware, which will make IT admins happy.

AI is now infused throughout Power Apps — not just in a side panel. It helps create apps, fill forms, and even modify code. We also saw the evolution of the plan designer, which now includes multiple agents: requirements, data, code, and solution agents. The Data Agent can now create multiple tables, relationships, and manage row-level security. The Code Agent can generate backend code, connect to APIs, and more.

At this point in the keynote, I’ll admit I was a bit scared. It felt like low-code was being replaced by traditional coding. But Power Apps has always been a code-generating platform. Dragging and dropping created code behind the scenes. Now, Microsoft gives us access to that code, allowing us to build more powerful solutions with AI doing most of the work and us making the final tweaks. Low-code is still here — you can still point and click for the easy stuff.

Next up: Power Automate. If you saw my recap from the European Power Platform Conference, you’ll know I was worried about the future of standalone Power Automate. Microsoft seems to be focusing on agent flows, and today’s demo confirmed that. The UI of the designer is changing again — actions and parameters are going back inline, similar to the old designer, but with a modern look. Trainers will need to update their materials (myself included).

Agent flows are key to building agents that do more than chat. We saw how they use AI Builder prompts to extract data from images and connect to Dataverse. In one demo, AI was used to approve or deny insurance claims based on company knowledge. It was impressive. Still, I hope Microsoft brings these features to standalone Power Automate — and I plan to bug some PMs this week to make that happen.

We also saw a Copilot Studio demo where Microsoft built an agent that connected to an MCP server and other agents in under four minutes. While the backend setup of the MCP server takes much longer in reality, what impressed me was the new Copilot testing capabilities. You can now create test cases, simulate user sessions, and set expected answers — either by quality or exact match. This is huge for companies trying to publish agents confidently.

Finally, we got to Microsoft 365 Copilot — surprisingly late in the keynote. Until now, it’s focused on productivity, research, and skills. But now, it can build. Two new agents were announced in the Frontier program: the Workflows Agent and the App Builder Agent. The Workflows Agent helps build Power Automate cloud flows using knowledge and AI prompts. The App Builder Agent lets you create full-stack applications — UI, React-based code, logic, and data — all within Copilot, without ever touching the code unless you want to.

Of course, the IT Pro in me has questions: Where are these apps stored? What environments are they created in? Are they embedded in SharePoint? Are old connectors available? But that’s the fun of new features — they get announced, and now it’s up to us to experiment and see how they can help our organizations.

So, what do I want you to do? All the features I talked about are available now or rolling out starting today. It might take a few days to hit your tenant, but go try them out. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed by agents and Copilot Studio, I get it — it’s not the easiest thing to start with. That’s why I created a course called Getting Started with Creating Agents in Copilot Studio. In just two hours, you’ll learn the basics and build a solid foundation.

And if you wish you were here with me and the 7,000 other community members in Las Vegas, good news — Microsoft already confirmed next year’s event for October 2026. Save the date!

Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe — it means a lot. And don’t forget to check out the link to the Copilot Studio course on screen so you can start building your own agents. See you soon!

Microsoft is retiring the MS-900, MB-910, and MB-920 by the end of 2025. Here’s what’s changing and what replaces them. In this video, I’ll walk you through:
Which exams are retiring and when
Why Microsoft is making this change (hint: Copilot & AI everywhere)
What’s replacing them — the brand-new AB-900 AI Workplace Fundamentals exam
What we know so far about its structure, skills measured, and how it builds on MS-900
A sneak peek at Microsoft’s upcoming AI Architect certification

If you’re planning to get certified in Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365, this update is a must-watch. The clock is ticking if you want to add the retiring credentials to your transcript — and the new AB-900 is shaping up to be the go-to certification for the AI era.

Video Summary

Microsoft is retiring MS-900, MB-910, and MB-920 by the end of 2025, so if you’re planning to take them, now’s the time. The good news? They’ll stay on your transcript forever.

The new AB-900: AI Workplace Fundamentals exam is coming, and it’s not just a rebrand—it’s a major upgrade. Think MS-900, but with Copilot, AI, and a whole lot more admin content packed in.

AB-900 covers three big pillars: core Microsoft 365 concepts (like identity and security), data protection and governance with Copilot, and hands-on admin tasks for Copilot and agents—including licensing, monitoring, and lifecycle management.

This exam is dense—possibly double the content of MS-900, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft turns it into a two-day class like PL-900. Honestly, it feels more like an associate-level exam than a fundamentals one.

More AI-focused certifications are on the way, and while I can’t share details yet, I’ve seen what’s coming. So if you want to stay ahead in the AI era, AB-900 is your starting point—and yes, I’ll be creating a full prep course for it soon!

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

Microsoft is retiring some of its most popular fundamental certifications, including the MS-900, MB-910, and MB-920. If you’re planning to get certified, this is a pretty big change. I’ll walk you through what’s going away and what’s replacing it. We’ll cover everything from which exams are retiring, why Microsoft is making the change, and what the new AI Workplace Fundamentals exam is—because yes, we have a confirmed new certification coming that looks quite different compared to the old MS-900.

Let’s start with the retirements. In a blog post on the Microsoft Tech Community, Microsoft announced that several fundamentals exams will be retired by the end of 2025. This includes some of the most popular fundamentals exams, such as the MS-900 (Microsoft 365 Certified Fundamentals), MB-910 (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals CRM), and its sibling MB-920 (Dynamics 365 Fundamentals ERP). If you’re studying for those, you can still take them until December 31, 2025. After that, they’re gone. So if you want to take them, now is the time. The cool thing with fundamentals is that they technically never expire—they’ll stay on your transcript forever.

You might wonder why Microsoft is retiring them. Let’s be honest—it’s no secret that Microsoft has one thing on their mind: Copilot. We’ve seen the rebrands where everything is now Copilot. M365 has been renamed to Copilot, and 365 apps have been renamed to Copilot. So far, the learning department has been spared, but it’s now time for those rebrands to also make it to Microsoft Learn. Microsoft said that it’s time to evolve certifications for an AI-driven, agent-first future. In plain terms, fundamentals need to reflect today’s workplace, and that means Copilot and AI are front and center.

Now, enough with the sad news. The good news is that we do have some new certifications coming up. There are two new exams that we know about for sure. Let me start with the expert certification. A few months ago, I published a video on my channel talking about how we might see Microsoft merge the PL-600 Power Platform Architect and MB-700 Dynamics 365 Architect into one AI Architect exam. Microsoft has confirmed they are working on an expert certification to validate AI-first expertise, including advanced skills in generative AI, multi-agent orchestration, and agentic design using Microsoft Copilot Studio, Azure AI services such as Foundry, and Dynamics 365. There’s no news yet on exactly what’s inside or if the PL-600 and MB-700 will retire. However, that definitely seems to be the exam I talked about in my previous video.

Now let’s move over to the fundamentals exam. This one, we have more information on. First of all, we have the exam number: AB-900. The name is AI Workplace Fundamentals. It looks like we’re going to get a brand-new code for the exams—AB—which I think stands for AI and Business Applications. This maps to how Microsoft reorganized the business, where AI and Business Applications are one of the organizations inside Microsoft.

We know more because Microsoft did a survey that gave us information on it. Honestly, I feel like it’s an evolution from the MS-900 exam, but it adds a lot of Copilot into i,t as well as more administration than I expected. Some of the things that candidates should be able to do include identifying the core features and objects of Microsoft 365 services, which seem to come straight from the MS-900. After that, it switches over to AI. Candidates need to understand data protection and governance tasks for M365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot, as well as perform basic administrative tasks for Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents.

Looking deeper at the details, the first big pillar is basically almost all of the MS-900. It covers the identity and core objects of M365, as well as Microsoft 365 security principles such as Zero Trust, Defender XDR, and Entra ID. You’ll need to understand things such as single sign-on, conditional access policies, secure score, privileged identity management (PIM), and more.

Then we have two more pillars that got added. First, understanding data protection and governance tasks for Microsoft 365 and M365 Copilot, which covers Microsoft Purview and things such as information protection, data loss prevention, insider risk management, DSPM, and more. This pillar also includes understanding data security implications for Microsoft 365 Copilot, including how Copilot accesses data, how the Microsoft Graph influences Copilot responses, and how permissions work in the scope of Copilot. I’m a big fan of this one—it also includes SharePoint advanced management features such as data access governance reports and restricted content discoverability.

We then move over to the final pillar: performing basic administrative tasks for Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents. This is really interesting as it focuses purely on Copilot, with objectives such as understanding the built-in features of Microsoft 365 Copilot, features of agents in SharePoint and M365 Copilot, and custom agents. It includes understanding the licensing model for both monthly and pay-as-you-go features, which will be a tough one to keep up to date. It also includes analyst and researcher roles, so you’ll need to know those as well.

Finally, we have admin tasks for both Copilot and agents, with features such as assigning Copilot licenses, monitoring Copilot adoption, and managing prompts. For agents, you’ll need to know how to manage user access, how to create an agent, how to get it approved, and how to manage its lifecycle from both the M365 Admin Center and the Power Platform Admin Center.

So, what do I think about this? That is a lot of content. This truly seems like they took the MS-900 exam and put it on steroids—with double the content it had before. I do wonder if Microsoft will plan to make this a two-day class like they did for the PL-900, instead of a one-day class like the MS-900 was, in order to cover all the content. But yeah, this will be a ton of content, and I’m surprised—and honestly maybe a little disappointed—that there seems to be a ton of admin content in this AB-900 exam. I truly wish that Microsoft gave us a dedicated fundamentals or maybe associate-level exam to cover all the admin centers, reports, and permissions for Copilot, instead of having one fundamentals exam that covers it all—for business users, information workers, and admins. Give us that admin exam that covers Purview, Defender, and how to manage M365 agents. That deserves its own exam. Right now, we’re going to have this huge fundamentals exam that will be as much content as an associate-level exam.

I’m really excited about it, that’s for sure. I cannot wait to take it. I cannot wait to create content on it. I mean, I already have all the content out there—it’s just not packaged into the certification yet. So I look forward to creating a dedicated certification prep course for it. But it will be a lot of content. I hope I’ll be able to take the beta exam—hopefully it works out at Ignite. Microsoft will have the beta out there, but it’s not confirmed yet. So let’s see what Microsoft has in store for us.

While I can’t give the specifics yet, I know for sure that Microsoft is working on more exams that have to do with AI. This will probably build on the AB—AI and Business Solutions—and they’ll probably build up this new pillar, this new bucket of certifications. I can’t talk about them yet. I’ve seen the titles. I’ve seen some of the subjects they’re working on. But I’ll make sure to do a video on them as soon as I can. So make sure you subscribe to the channel.

This has been a bit longer video than I intended, but we covered a lot of content. So if you’re eyeing the MS-900, MB-910, or MB-920, the clock is ticking—you’ve got until the end of 2025 to take them. And if you want a fundamental certification that stays relevant in the AI era, AB-900 is the one to watch. Let me tell you something cool: if you want to take the MS-900, there’s a current promotion as I’m recording this video where you can get up to 50% off the exam. Let me know in the comments—what do you think about the AB-900?

Microsoft just released one of the most important AI updates for SharePoint — the Knowledge Agent. In this deep dive, you’ll learn what it does, how to turn it on or off, and how it helps you improve your SharePoint sites with AI-powered insights, broken-link detection, and automatic metadata creation.

I’ll show you everything from setup using PowerShell to best practices and permissions — plus a live demo of how it helps site owners and editors keep content fresh and Copilot-ready.

Video Summary

Metadata finally matters! Starting October 2025, Copilot in SharePoint uses metadata to deliver better results—and the Knowledge Agent can auto-tag your documents using AI, no manual effort needed.

Site owners get superpowers. With tools like Improve This Site, you can retire outdated pages, fix broken links, and identify content gaps based on user searches—making your site cleaner and more useful.

Autofill columns are magic. The agent scans your documents and suggests metadata like invoice numbers, client names, and due dates. You can tweak prompts, preview results, and even build views and rules based on that data.

Setup is PowerShell-only (for now). Admins need to enable the Knowledge Agent via PowerShell, with site-specific activation coming on November 1st. So yes, go treat your SharePoint admin to a coffee!

It’s additive, not disruptive. The Knowledge Agent doesn’t replace existing SharePoint agents—it enhances them. And while it’s still evolving, it’s already a huge leap forward for organizing content and boosting Copilot ROI.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

We all know that everything Microsoft focuses on these days seems to be Copilot. But behind the scenes, Microsoft just released one amazing functionality that is going to change the way you use SharePoint, and that is the Knowledge Agent in SharePoint. This is part of quite a few agents that Microsoft has released throughout Teams, in M365 Copilot Chat, in Viva Communities. So there are quite a few agents that Microsoft has been working on, but the one that has the most impact is the Knowledge Agent in SharePoint.

Why do I say that it has the biggest impact? Starting in October 2025, Microsoft will finally use metadata in your libraries for Copilot results. And now, I’m sure you have probably been hearing it forever that adding metadata to your files is a good practice, whether it’s for search or simply when looking at the library to make sure that you quickly find the document you’re looking for. But what if I tell you that the Knowledge Agent can make sure that you use AI to add metadata to your document? So no action required on your part, and that will make Copilot and your SharePoint experience better.

In this video, we are first going to learn what the Knowledge Agent is. I’ve seen so many things on LinkedIn, so many versions. I’ve been using it since the private preview. So it’s something that I’ve been working with for a while. So I really want to make sure we cover everything it does properly. We are going to cover how to turn it on or off, and we’re going to cover some of the upcoming features we have for governance. And then I’ll share some best practices and a few links and additional resources I want you to know about.

Let’s start with what the Knowledge Agent is in SharePoint. And to really better help you understand the Knowledge Agent in SharePoint, let me take a step back to before September 2025. So, not that far ago, if you had an M365 Copilot license or every tenant that had at least one Copilot license, every SharePoint site had a built-in agent that came with the site. Not something we could turn off. We couldn’t delete. We couldn’t manage it. And it was grounded on all of the content of the website. So that was there by default, and you could access the agent using the top bar with the Copilot logo.

But now Microsoft has introduced the Knowledge Agent in SharePoint. This is in addition to the default agent that’s there on the SharePoint site. So that agent is still there. We now have a bunch of additional tools that come with it that make it even more valuable. We have some tools for site owners, such as “Improve This Site,” which allows you to find outdated pages, find content gaps, and find broken links in your site, as well as a few library tools such as “Organize This Library,” “Create Rules,” and “Create New Views.”

Okay, that’s enough slides. Let’s go to the demo and check this out. So right here, I have just a SharePoint site here that I set up—Knowledge Agent Demo—and you access the Knowledge Agent by going to the bottom right. So you see, you have that floating SharePoint logo. That’s when you open the Knowledge Agent. Depending on what permissions you have, you’ll see different options. You see right now I’m a site owner, so I can summarize this page, ask a question. Because I’m a site owner, I see “Improve This Site.” I’m the only one who can see it. We’ll cover the permissions a bit later, but just so you know, the options you see will depend on your permissions.

So I’ll go and improve this site. And here I have, first of all, retired inactive pages. You know what? On this site over here, this is a brand new site, so I don’t have any. Let me go to another site that I have here. Go to “Improve This Site,” and you see this one here. I have five inactive pages. And by the way, if ever you can go change the inactivity time because inactive doesn’t mean the same thing for every single company. It can be 3 months, 6 months, all the way up to 36 months.

Now, what does retiring a page do? Retiring a page will deprioritize it from search results, Copilot, and agents, and it will add a banner notifying visitors that the content isn’t being maintained. You know what? Let me retire this page over here that I had. Great. And let me go to all my pages now so we can see it in action. Let me go to the site’s contents here. Let me go to my site pages. And I think it was—are we gonna see it? There we go. “Who We Are.” This is the page. You see, I have this banner that got added: “This page is not being maintained. The content may be out of date.” So this is one of the things it does for the user, but it also deprioritizes it from search and Copilot.

So, of course, it’s a good idea as a site owner to take a look at those pages and retire them if you think they’re not needed anymore. You can also, if ever you don’t want to deal with that today, snooze that suggestion for two weeks, or you can also never show it again for a specific page. It’s really up to you.

So that’s the retiring inactive pages. And now, let me go back to my Knowledge Agent demo here. I also have “Find Content Gaps.” Now, this one I don’t have anything in here, but what it does is it uses AI to analyze your search queries, and it will say, “Hey Vlad, there are 30 people that searched for your vacation policy on this site, but they couldn’t find anything.” That’s maybe some content you should create. So it’s really there to help you find what people are searching for on your website that they are not finding.

So that’s that. And then we have the broken links. So you see, here this link is not working. I can go, and you see, I can see where this link is. This is a simple page. You see it redirects to a 404 not found, and it found it in the quick link. So let me go back here to “Improve This Site.” And what I can do if I want, I can redirect it. So you can either redirect it by navigating to—for example, say I can navigate to a page, or I can go type a link. But it’s something interesting with the link. So let’s say I want to redirect it to vladalkst.com. Let’s say I go this—you see, I can only link it to files in my own organization. So I cannot link it to something external, even if it was an external link before. So just something to be aware.

Let me try and link it just to the homepage of my SharePoint site here. And let me go find a file there so it doesn’t complain anymore here. Let’s go to policies. Let’s copy the link here. Let’s go “Only people with existing access.” Let’s do this the right way, of course. Let’s type it in here. And you can only link to a page as well, so not a file. So let’s go here now. Let’s go to a page over here. Let’s type it in. And there we go. Now it works.

So a big limitation here—even if it’s an external link—we can only link to an internal link of type page. I do wish we could link to whatever, to be honest, and not only to a page, but that’s what Microsoft allows us to do. If you ever want to see your redirects, you can go on the three dots over here and click on “Show Redirected Links.” And you can see here the original URL and the destination URL over here.

Now I am curious about something. Let’s try to go to vladoxtech.sharepoint.com. Well, not that SharePoint. Let me try to see if I can hack it here and just save it here in the list. And no, it doesn’t let me. It still does the check. So we cannot hack it to go from the back end in order to go past that. So you are limited to redirecting to another page inside your tenant.

Now, something else I want to tell you—and I want to be completely honest with you on this. You see, this is the simple page it found. However, you see, I have this link here called “Just a Broken Link,” which is a 404. I have “Learn About a Team Site,” which brings me to another external site, which is another 404. I have a super broken link here, and I have a few others throughout the page here—even one that goes to SharePoint that is broken—and the Knowledge Agent was not able to find them.

So again, just want to be honest here. I think it’s a great start. I think it still has a lot of work to do to catch up to some of the vendors in this space that have been doing broken links forever. So just something to consider. It’s still, of course, way better than nothing, but don’t count on it just yet to find 100% of the broken links in your SharePoint tenant.

Okay, so we talked about “Improve This Site.” We can also summarize this page, which will basically use the default SharePoint agent that comes with every site. However, it’s able to be grounded just on the specific page we’re navigating, which is kind of cool. Of course, right now, I don’t have much in here, so it doesn’t give me much. But something that is cool is that from the Knowledge Agent, we can really ground it in the page we are navigating, which we weren’t really able to do before. And I can also ask a question, and when I ask a question, it just opens the default SharePoint agent, where I can ask any question about the content inside the site.

But now let’s go over to the documents. And you know what I’m going to do is let me go over and I’m going to go and drag and drop some invoices here. This way, I have some content in this document library. Let me just grab a bunch of them here so we have a bit of content. It’s important to have content because what I want to show you now is the ability to organize this library. Now, I know that a lot of you, if you start from a clean library, you’re going to make an effort to make it clean, organized from the start. But sometimes we just inherit libraries that are not set up properly. And nobody wants to go through old files, things like that, to fix it. And this is where “Organize This Library” comes in.

What I can do first of all is I can select a document here, and well, it looks like automatically what it did is it went and generated some columns for me. Let me do it again. I feel like it skipped a step that I wanted to show you. So let me go here, “Organize This Library.” And by default, you see it does here, “Organizing Your Content.” So, what this will do, which is really, really cool, it will look at the content you have in your library, and it will always suggest three columns that you can add. You see, I had invoices, so it gave me an invoice number, invoice total amount, and invoice due date. This uses autofill columns.

If ever I want to change the prompt, you see, I see the prompt over here. Let’s look for the invoice number. You see, they all have a zero at the start. I don’t like that. I can go edit, go to the prompt here, and here it says, “Format as a string with leading zeros if present.” I will say, “Always remove leading zero.” So whatever it suggests, you don’t have to take it as is. And if I want to, I can select one or two files here, for example, and then preview the results just on those two files. And you see it gave me the invoice number, but without the leading zero. So I can modify it. I’m starting to have metadata on my library.

I can continue asking it things. I can continue to ask it, for example, “Add a column for the client name.” So I now have this agent that can work with autofill columns. You see, it did a client name column. The autofill prompt is “Extract the name of the client associated with each document,” and it found the client names for me. That is pretty amazing. I can also, if I select some files over here, you see I can go and add a column manually or let’s say, you know what, I love that job it’s been doing. I want it to find me three more columns. And as long as you press that button, it will keep adding three more columns for you.

So now, what did it add? Let’s go towards the end here. Did it add any three new ones here? I’ll zoom out a bit. Not yet. You know what? Let me just unselect all of them. And I want to see more column ideas. Come on, give me more ideas. Looks like this time it decided not to work. It works most of the time. Worst case, we can always save it and then come back to it. Usually, it just adds three more ideas. You saw because we did it, it actually overwrote our invoice number prompt that we had, unfortunately.

But let me go back to “Organize This Library,” and hopefully soon we might have to leave it doing its thing. And then we’re going to see the different things it added. Why are you doing this to me? Once you go back to the main library, you’ll notice that autofill has started, and you can see the progress over here. What I’m going to do now is I’ll just pause it for a few seconds just to get the metadata in there before I show you some of the other features.

There we go. It got my metadata. That’s amazing. Now, what I can do if I want to is, instead of “Organize This Library,” I can ask my agent to create a new view. So I can do, for example, “View files created by specific person,” “Show recently updated files first,” or I can also ask—let’s see if this works, I haven’t tested it yet—“Group files by client name.” Let’s see if it’s able to do a grouping for me. I love that it adds that description in there: “You’d like to organize your files by client name. I can help you by creating a column, a client name,” which I already had. I didn’t need that new column.

So I do wish that it didn’t need to do that for me. I did wish that it recognized my client name column that I had, but it created a new one and created the view. So that worked. I can save that to a new view, for example, instead. So it’s able to modify views. I do wish that—it’s funny that it did it on the client name over here. So it did it in my column. However, it still added this “Client Name 1” column, but it’s not using it inside of the grouping, which is, well, it’s not the best thing.

Let me go edit. I do not need this column. Let’s delete it. And now we’re back to what I wanted originally. I wanted to have a view grouped by client name. So that worked as well. And I can also set up rules. So, for example, I can send a notification when content changes, when a new file is added, set a status to “Needs Review,” copy files between folders, and move files to another location. This is really just an agent for that rule agent in SharePoint.

Let me try something more difficult. “Send a notification to vladvadtalksteck.com when a new invoice is added with the client name Fabricam.” Let’s see if it’s able to do something a bit more complicated like tha,t because that’s the kind of, you know, that’s the kind of rules that we would use. And there we go. “When a new file is added, if the value of the client name is Fabricam, send an email to me.” And that worked awesome. That is really great. I’m super happy that that worked.

I’ll cancel it for now because I don’t want to get spammed for this test one, but it did work perfectly. So we have looked at “Organize This Library,” “Set Up Rules,” “Create a New View,” and if you click on “See More Agents,” this will bring you to the SharePoint agent list that you are used to. So you can see there are the agents on this site, or some other agents from other sites that you have access to.

If we summarize what the Knowledge Agent in SharePoint is, it’s your entry point for a bunch of different tools. Whether you are a site reader, you’re going to have “Summarize This Page” and “Ask a Question.” If you’re a site owner, you can use “Improve This Site.” And if you’re a site editor, you can automatically scan documents and create metadata on them just using AI. So in just five minutes, your libraries can be organized, you can create views, and you can create rules. That is pretty awesome. And we don’t lose any of the previous functionality that we had. All our agents that we had before—all the SharePoint agents—they are still there. So this doesn’t take away anything; it just adds a bunch of awesome functionality.

Now, how do we turn it on? Well, you need to buy a drink of your choice for your favorite SharePoint admin because this is PowerShell only. So, first thing—and feel free to send this to your SharePoint admin, by the way, so they can learn about it as well—and if you like the content so far, make sure you subscribe to the channel. This way, you get notified when I release new courses such as this one.

But the first thing you’ll need to do is update your SharePoint module because Microsoft only gave us the parameters in the latest PowerShell module. If not, you’re going to get an error like this: “I cannot find a parameter with the Knowledge Agent scope inside.” Then, again, you need to use PowerShell. You need to connect to your SharePoint Online tenant. If you want to see the current configuration, you can run the command on the screen right now: Get-SPOTenant and select the KnowledgeAgentScope and KnowledgeAgentSelectedSiteList.

If you want to enable it on all sites, you can do Set-SPOTenant so and set the KnowledgeAgentScope parameter to “AllSites.” So that will enable it on all the different sites in your tenant. If there are some sites that you want to exclude, you can run the Set-SPOTenant command and set the KnowledgeAgentScope to “ExcludeSelectedSites” and then give it a list of sites you want to exclude.

Now I know what you admins are thinking because I was thinking the same thing: “Vlad, I just want to turn it on on two or three sites so we can run a proof of concept and test things internally.” That’s only coming on November 1st. That’s what Microsoft said. So, starting November 1st, we’re going to be able to enable it in specific sites only rather than an exclude list. If you want to wait until then, you can wait another month until November 1st and only start using it then, because I know this is something that many administrators need before they turn on a brand-new feature like this one.

Now, let me talk about a few best practices and some thoughts I have. I’ll be honest—everything in the Knowledge Agent that we have makes it easier to improve your user experience in SharePoint. Whether it’s search, libraries, views, things like that, we’re going to have no more broken links on stale pages. You’re going to increase ROI on your Copilot deployment with metadata because Copilot is finally going to care about metadata.

And something else I want to say is that Microsoft always starts with an opt-in model in preview, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets turned on by default in the future. So start testing it today. Again, once it goes GA, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just on for everybody.

Now, who can use this agent? Probably I should have started with that. But to use this feature, users must have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license assigned to them and be site owners or members to see that agent button. Something that is cool is that all the usage you do with “Organize This Library,” with everything, is included with Microsoft 365 Copilot—at least during the preview. That’s what Microsoft said. So now’s the time to use it. Have fun with it, because we don’t know what licensing will be once it’s in general availability.

Now let’s talk a bit about permissions. Let me go to the support site over here. So, who should use this Knowledge Agent? Site managers, content managers, content creators, and content consumers. What I want to talk about—so you see here, content consumers are site owners, site members, and site visitors. So everybody—they can ask a question on pages, summarize this page, and see more agents. They can ask a question on a document library, and they can also make the list that you see over here on specific files.

A site manager is a site member. So people with edit permissions, site owners, and site collection admins—they can improve this site. So they’re going to have the ability to go and see the broken links, see the stale content, things like that. Content creators are site members. They can also create a page. And if you’re a content manager—so if you’re a site member with manage list permissions—you can organize this library, set up rules, create a new view, as well as do it either on the full document library or only on certain files.

Other things that are important: you won’t see the Knowledge Agent skills or the floating button on SharePoint lists. We all know that Microsoft didn’t really implement Copilot stuff or agent stuff yet. They’re really working on it. So this doesn’t work there. You won’t see it on the SharePoint homepage, on Viva Connections, or if you’re browsing a SharePoint site within Microsoft Teams.

I’ll make sure to include this support site in the description below. And the other resource that I wanted you to see—especially if you’re a dev—another MVP, Bill Cameron, an amazing developer, created a list of what are the hidden APIs that this Knowledge Agent uses. So if you want to see how it works in the back end, how you can do it, maybe do the same things through code—for example, how you can see the “Fix Broken Links” functionality and things like that—you have a list here of old APIs, sample responses, things like that. And this can be really useful, especially if you want to use code or you already have an application and you want to add those features to it. This can be very, very interesting.

Now that we have covered the Knowledge Agent, for me, one of the most valuable things that is included is the ability to organize the library and use autofill columns. So on the screen right now, you’re going to see a link to a video that deep dives into autofill columns. And if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below. It’s going to be my pleasure to answer. But for now, I’ll see you in the next video.

This new SharePoint update is awesome. Autofill columns in Microsoft 365 now support Managed Metadata, making it easier than ever to automatically tag and classify your content using company terms.

If your information governance team blocked Autofill in the past, this changes everything. You can now use your term sets directly in Autofill columns for consistent, high-quality metadata across your libraries.

Watch the demo to see how it works and what limitations (like the 100-term cap) you should know about.

Video SummaryAutofill Columns Just Got Smarter: Microsoft 365’s autofill columns now support managed metadata — finally letting you connect AI tagging with your organization’s term sets.No More Manual Tagging Hassles: The feature recognizes preferred terms and synonyms automatically, so “Fabricam Inc.” and “Fabricam” are treated as the same clean value.New vs. Old: Earlier AI tagging relied on traditional machine learning. The new version taps into modern AI, giving you more accurate and flexible tagging.Hands-on Example: In the demo, autofill processed invoices, tagged existing clients correctly, and even added new terms like “Pluralsight Inc.” directly into the term store.Know the Limits: Currently, it supports up to 100 terms per set — ideal for departments or categories — and it’s available to try free in your tenant until the end of 2025.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

If you want to use autofill columns to better classify your data in Microsoft 365, but your information governance architect wouldn’t allow it before, good news! Autofill columns now support managed metadata. In a recent update to the documentation, Microsoft announced that autofill columns now work with managed metadata using term sets containing up to 100 terms. When a preferred term or synonym matches, autofill will automatically respond with the preferred term.

Now, you might be wondering, “Wait, Vlad — isn’t that something we could already do?” That’s a great question, and it’s easy to get confused here. For the past two or three years, Microsoft has had a machine learning–based option that could automatically add managed metadata to SharePoint Online. If you had a pay-as-you-go set up, whenever you configured a managed metadata column, you could choose to automatically tag documents with terms. However, that earlier version had some limitations — for example, a maximum of five columns per library — and it wasn’t based on the latest AI technology. It relied on traditional machine learning, not large language models. That’s why, in Microsoft’s most recent presentations on document processing in Microsoft 365, this older approach was categorized under the “previous generation” of tools.

Many of my clients were hesitant to invest in that older solution, even though autofill columns worked well. The big issue was that we couldn’t ensure it used company-approved terms. That’s exactly what changes with this update — now, autofill columns can use managed metadata directly.

Let’s see it in action. In my demo, I’m in a SharePoint site where I’ll create a new document library called “Invoice Test.” Once it’s created, I’ll upload a sample document. In my SharePoint Online admin center, I already have a term set for clients in the term store. I want to make sure that when I generate invoice reports, all client names are consistent. So, I’ll add a managed metadata column called “Client.” When setting it up, you’ll notice two options: “Automatically tag documents with terms” and “Autofill.” The first option is the old taxonomy tagging method, and when you enable autofill, it automatically disables the old one — you can’t use both at once.

Next, I’ll select my “Clients” term set and set up a simple prompt: “Please extract the full name of the client from the invoice.” When I test it, it should identify “Fabricam,” which is one of my existing terms. What’s great is that managed metadata supports synonyms. For example, I can add “Fabricam Inc.” as a synonym for “Fabricam.” This means that whether a document says “Fabricam,” “Fabricam Inc.,” or a similar variation, autofill will always tag it correctly as “Fabricam,” keeping the metadata consistent across the library.

If your term set is open, autofill can also create new values automatically — you can decide whether to allow that. In my example, since the term set is open, it’s enabled by default. I can choose to disable it if I want more control. Once that’s set up, I’ll process the document through autofill and upload a few more test files.

For instance, I’ve uploaded a PDF labelled “Pluralsight” and another labelled “Pluralsight Inc.” — neither of which exists in my term store yet. After processing, autofill correctly tagged “Fabricam” and automatically added “Pluralsight Inc.” as a new term in the “Clients” term set. That’s impressive — it means autofill isn’t just applying metadata, it’s enriching your taxonomy dynamically.

You can verify the results by refreshing the term store. In my demo, I can see that “Pluralsight Inc.” and “Woodgrove Bank” were both added automatically. The library now shows all three clients tagged correctly, using managed metadata.

One thing to keep in mind is that the current limit for managed metadata in autofill columns is 100 terms. For many scenarios — such as departments or fiscal years — that’s more than enough, but larger organizations might find it restrictive for now. I’m confident Microsoft will continue improving and expanding this capability.

Finally, if you’d like to explore this yourself, you can try autofill columns for free in your Microsoft 365 tenant until the end of 2025. And if you want to stay up to date with the latest document processing and AI features in Microsoft 365, make sure to subscribe to Vlad’s Tech on YouTube — there’s always something new to learn.

Want to understand how roles like app makers, IT pros, and developers fit into a Power Platform project? This clip gives you a quick breakdown of the key responsibilities — straight from my full Pluralsight course

Watch the full course

In this video, we’ll cover:
The essential roles in a Power Platform project — from business users to architects
How responsibilities vary by company size and platform maturity
What app makers really do (hint: it’s more than just building apps!)
Why collaboration between business and IT is key to Power Platform success

Whether you’re building your first app or rolling out Power Platform across your org, this will help you understand who should be involved — and how they work together.

Perfect for IT Pros, admins, functional consultants, and anyone curious about Power Platform team structure.

Video SummaryBusiness Users are the everyday heroes—they use the apps, flows, and reports, and their feedback helps improve the solutions. They’re the largest group in any organization.App Makers bridge the gap between business and tech. They’re not in IT, but they have enough know-how to build no-code or low-code apps that boost productivity for their teams.Developers handle the heavy lifting. They create custom connectors, PCF components, and integrations—especially for business-critical apps used across the organization.Admins and IT Pros keep everything running smoothly. They manage environments, security policies, and service health. In smaller orgs, they often wear multiple hats, including platform ownership.In mature organizations, you’ll see specialized roles. Think functional consultants, solution architects, and Power Platform owners who define vision, gather requirements, and design end-to-end solutions.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

If you’ve ever wondered who does what in a Power Platform project, this clip from my Pluralsight course is for you.

Let’s take a look at what kind of roles we can find in an organization using the Power Platform. And I’ll be the first to say that every organization is unique, but every successful organization using the Power Platform has multiple people working in different roles, and every role has different responsibilities. They work together to make sure that everything from a small app to a business-critical one is a success.

Let me start with some examples that every company has. First of all, the business user or the end user role is the role that most people in your organization will perform. They use the apps, flows, reports, and agents available in the enterprise and will, of course, provide feedback in order to make them better.

After that, we have the app maker role. App makers come from the business side. They do not work in the IT department, but they have enough technical knowledge to create no-code or even sometimes low-code solutions for their team and department. So, nothing business-critical for the whole organization, but enough to make their team and department more productive.

We then have developers who are responsible for creating anything from custom connectors, PCF components, and integrations using code, and they are the ones who are often involved in more business-critical applications that the whole organization will use.

We then have the administrator or IT pro who’s in charge of managing environments, security controls such as data loss prevention policies, and they monitor service health. In smaller organizations, they also act as a product owner or manager for the platform and inform all the other roles about upcoming changes to the Power Platform and, of course, promote its use inside the organization.

Now, if we go to bigger or more mature organizations, when it comes to the Power Platform, other roles you might see are dedicated functional consultants or business analysts who are responsible for gathering requirements, mapping them to capabilities, and helping with solution planning. You might also have solution architects who are responsible for designing the end-to-end Power Platform solution inside the company. And this role, while they do not do any of the actual app creation work themselves, they are the ones who have the whole picture of how everything inside the organization works together.

Finally, you might encounter a dedicated Power Platform owner or Center of Excellence lead who owns everything Power Platform inside the organization—from defining the vision to advocating for Power Platform inside the organization.

That’s just a snapshot of how the different roles work together. In the full Pluralsight course, I’ll go deeper into the App Maker role, including its governance responsibilities and permissions, and we’ll even cover the Microsoft credentials that can help you as an app maker grow. Check out the link in the description or the link on your screen right now to watch the full course.

Want to see how to use AI Builder prompts inside Copilot Studio to transform data using one of the 11,000 models from Azure AI Foundry? This tutorial shows you exactly how to do that — and it’s straight from my full Pluralsight course

Watch the full course on Pluralsight

In this video, you’ll learn how to:
Build an AI prompt that pulls vacation data from Dataverse
Choose from over 11,000 models, including GPT‑4.1, GPT‑5, and even Grok or Gemini
Dynamically inject user-specific data into your agent’s responses
Turn your Copilot Studio agent into a true assistant — not just a chatbot

Whether you’re building HR self-service agents, automating support, or exploring what’s possible with AI in Microsoft 365, this hands-on demo gives you the tools to get started right.

Video SummaryAI in Microsoft 365 is evolving — it’s not just about generating text anymore. It’s about creating intelligent agents that can take real action, like pulling live data to help users.Copilot Studio makes it easy to build smart agents — in the demo, the speaker adds a topic called “vacation days” that responds based on user intent, not just trigger phrases.Agents can connect to real databases — instead of giving generic info, the agent pulls personalized vacation day data from a Dataverse table, which could also be connected to systems like Workday or even Excel.You can choose from thousands of AI models — over 11,000 models are available, including GPT versions and others like DeepSeek or Gemini, allowing you to tailor the agent’s capabilities to your needs.The result is a truly helpful assistant — the agent dynamically retrieves vacation day info based on the user’s email and responds with accurate, personalized data, turning a simple chatbot into a powerful tool.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

AI in Microsoft 365 isn’t just about Copilot writing text—it’s about agents that take action. In this demo for my Pluralsight course, I demonstrate how to use AI prompts in Copilot Studio to retrieve real data using your model. Let’s jump right in. I’m continuing to build our employee self-service agent, and for this next demo, I want to add a topic. I’m adding one from blank, and you’ll notice something different: the agent chooses based on intent. I don’t need a list of trigger phrases. I just explain what the topic does, and the agent will redirect the user based on that intent.

For this topic, I’m calling it “vacation days.” The description includes queries like “vacation days,” “how many vacation days do I have,” “check my vacation balance,” “PTO,” and so on. You can give it a list of phrases or just describe when to use the topic, like when the user wants to know how many vacation days they have left. It’s really up to you, and I recommend experimenting with your own scenarios because every model and situation is different.

Earlier in the course, I tested asking about vacations, and the agent gave general info from my knowledge sources—like “if you’ve worked between 0 and 3 years, you get this many days.” But that’s not good enough for my organization. I have a Dataverse table that logs how many vacation days each user has left. You might have this data in Workday or another HR system—or even in Excel (hopefully not, but it would still work). I want my agent to go into this Dataverse database, get the number of days I have left, and send me that info.

To do that, I’m using a new prompt from AI Builder. I name it “prompt vacation days.” When I go to the model, I see five default choices: GPT-4 mini, GPT-4.1, GPT-5, GPT-3, and GPT-5 Reasoning. But I can also add models from Azure AI Foundry, which has over 11,000 models to choose from. So if you want to use DeepSeek, Gemini, Grok, or others, you can. That’s amazing.

In my prompt, I tell it to search the database and add the table from Dataverse. There’s no search function, so I scroll to find my “employee holidays” table. I keep the user email and the “days left this year” columns. Then I add a text input called “user email” and use sample data—Vanessa, for example. I tell it to only return the number. When I test it, I get 35, which is correct. For this scenario, I probably don’t need a specialized model like Grok 3, which would add cost. GPT-4.1 works fine and also returns 35.

This shows how you can choose the right model for your business needs. Your agent can use 20 different models if needed, depending on their skills. I test it again with Vlad’s email, and it returns 50—perfect. I save the prompt and go back to the topic. Now I need to give it the dynamic user email. I create a new variable called “days left this year” and save it. That stores the info, but it doesn’t tell the user yet. So I add a message: “You have [days left this year] vacation days left.” I save and test it.

I type “vacation days,” and it hits the topic. It runs the prompt, and since I’m logged in as Vlad, it tells me I have 50 vacation days left. That’s awesome. Now the agent can look up info in a Dataverse table, in addition to all the knowledge it has from my intranet and benefits site. We’ve empowered it to connect to another system and help the user. And there’s even more we can do. That’s how AI prompts can turn a simple agent into a real assistant.

It’s been a wonderful journey—from building to publishing and monitoring agents. Check out the full course on Pluralsight by clicking the link on the screen or in the description.