Section 6: Sales, marketing, corporate communications and customer service

Scenario 54: Finding tender responses from past proposal answers

Level: Intermediate · Tools: SharePoint agents, Copilot in SharePoint, authorized SharePoint sites and document libraries

Who and in what situation

Selin, a proposal manager at a factory automation company in Kocaeli, wants to find approved answers in a scattered SharePoint archive for a new tender.

How it is done today

She searches by file name, compares similar answers and separately notifies the team of the supporting document.

How to do it with AI

  1. Open the agent chat in the relevant SharePoint site or document library. The agent can answer the question only using sites and documents the user can access. [111]
  2. If you have editing permissions, create a custom agent. Include only the approved proposal archive, current product documentation and relevant policy pages in its source scope; define its purpose and behavior. [111]
  3. Give the RFP question to the agent and request the response in the format “suggested answer, supporting document, document date, missing information.” Compare it with the original text in the document library.
  4. Send the response to a subject matter expert instead of pasting it directly into the proposal. If you need to share the agent link, use Share > Copy link in the chat pane. [111]

Example prompt

Use only the approved sources this agent can access for {tender question}. Find similar wording in previous answers and provide the source document name. If the source contains no answer, say “not found.” Do not invent any new technical commitment, certification, delivery time or price. Divide the result into suggested answer, supporting evidence, contradictions and points requiring human approval.

Evidence and real-world example

No independent company case study was found. Microsoft documents that SharePoint agents can answer questions using document and site content, and that their source scope and behavior can be customized. [111]

Points to consider

Do not add a document to the agent if it does not have access to the source folder. Copilot in SharePoint may require a license or a pay-as-you-go setting, and a custom agent may require site editing permissions. Have the technical team approve the wording and sources in the proposal. [111] [108]

Sources for this scenario

  1. Knowledge sources summary (learn.microsoft.com)
  2. Get started with agents in SharePoint (support.microsoft.com)