Copilot assistance for form fill in Model-Driven Apps

Believe it or not, I have actually received requests in the past where prospects wanted the system to automatically create records in Dataverse or Dynamics 365, which of course is kind of crazy! We always need to integrate with another system, or have someone either enter data manually or import the data into Dynamics 365 (or Dataverse) (for example rows like accounts, contacts, opportunities, cases, etc.) after which we can use other tools to add or update data. Think about how lead scores can be updated based on marketing related data, like clicks, views, etc. We can also use sequences to update records and/or create new records based on certain triggers, or even utilize Power Automate flows. The feature that I am discussing today brings the scenario I mentioned at the beginning of this article a lot closer, and yes it has to do with AI and Copilot! This feature is in preview in Power Apps (canvas apps), and it is generally available today for Model-Driven apps, including Dynamics 365 apps!
NOTE: My examples and the demo on the bottom of this screen will be related to Model-Driven Apps. So, what exactly am I talking about? This feature might not create new records, but it does simplifies and speeds up data entry.

How does it work?

So how does it do that? When a user is updating or entering a new record in a Model-Driven app (which can be a custom Model-Driven App or a Dynamics 365 CX model driven app, Copilot helps fill out forms by providing AI generated suggestions. The suggestions that are shown depend on how the user uses the app, what information is already in the form, and (similar) information that was entered for this table previously. If there is enough data, the suggestions will show up in the form, the suggestions will have an outline and the suggested data shows in a lighter font color. Keep in mind that suggestions are only shown for the tab that is open. The suggestions provided by Copilot are not mandatory, and only get saved if the user agrees to them. 

A user has the option to accept all suggestions, or they can accept only the suggestions they want to use. In order to accept all suggestions, the user can click the ‘Accept all’ button that shows up on the top of the form. In order to select one (or more) suggestions, a user can hover over the field, until they notice a check mark appear. Clicking the checkmark will accept the suggestion. A user can also click in the column and hit the ‘enter’ button. Another option for suggestions is to replace the suggested value by clicking in the column and typing over a suggestion, or by using backspace to remove the suggested content. If there are suggestions in a form that haven’t been accepted yet, and the user closes the form, they’ll notice a pop-up window that asks if they want to discard the suggestions. If the user continues to close the window the suggestions are not stored in the record.

Enable AI Form fill assistance

It’s very easy to get up and running with this form fill assistance for Model-Driven apps as there are only two things you need to do. Your Model-Driven app(s) needs to have the new modern refreshed look enabled, and you will need to enable the setting in the Power Platform Admin Center. You can do this by navigating to environments, and clicking on the environment for which you want to enable this.

Click ‘Settings’ on the top bar, and then expand the ‘Products’ section and click on ‘Features’. You should see the ‘AI Form Assistance’ setting in the list of features with the ‘Users as the feature becomes available’ option selected by default. This setting means that some of your users will see this feature before others, because Microsoft is rolling this feature out across regions gradually. If needed, you can change this setting to ‘All users immediately’.

Things to note

In order to use this functionality, there is really nothing you will have to do. Whether or not you’ll see the suggestions depends on a couple of things. First of all, the feature must have been rolled out to your region. I have used this functionality in my North America region and in the Canada region, so at least you know they are available there. Obviously, as I mentioned before, the Model-Driven app(s) needs to have the new modern refresh look enabled, and the feature has to be enabled from the environment level. On top of that, there needs to be enough ‘historical’ data in the system, of records that were added by the user that had identical information in their columns. And since I’m on the topic columns, it’s important to understand that this feature doesn’t provide suggestions for all column types in the database. Copilot only generates suggestions for choice, text, numeric, and date fields and on top of that it ONLY works in main forms. So if you are using a quick create form, don’t expect these suggestions to show here. I am not sure if this is something that Microsoft will add later, but for now it’s not available.
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