Copilot Studio

Copilot Studio: "Connect to continue" prompt missing for SharePoint knowledge users

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Posted on by Bharat_Kurde

Environment:

Product: Microsoft Copilot Studio (New Experience / GitHub Copilot harness)

Knowledge source: SharePoint (private group site) containing Excel (.xlsx) files

Started: Approximately last 1 week (after the new Copilot Studio experience update)

What we built:
We created an agent grounded on Excel files stored in a private SharePoint group site. The agent answers business questions (P&L, vendor, employee data) by reading these files as knowledge sources.

Our intended design:

We want to share the agent with 70–80% of the organization.

We do NOT want to expose the background Excel/data source files to all those users.

So we shared the data files with an organization-wide sharing link ("People in [org] with the link can view"), while keeping the SharePoint site itself a private group.

Previous behavior (worked correctly):
When a user who was not a member of the private SharePoint site asked the agent a question, a prompt appeared:

"Connect to continue — I'll use your credentials to connect and get the information you're looking for. SharePoint — This connection can: FederatedKnowledgeSearchOperation [Allow] [Cancel]"

The user clicked Allow, the agent then tested their access against the knowledge source, and returned the correct answer. This was the desired behavior — it let non-member users authenticate and get answers without being added to the private site.

Current problem (broken since the new experience update):
Over the last ~1 week, after the updated Copilot Studio (new experience / harness):

The "Connect to continue" (FederatedKnowledgeSearchOperation) prompt no longer appears for non-member users.

Instead of the allowance prompt, non-member users immediately receive an error such as "Not found in the database" or "no data returned."

Members of the SharePoint site still get correct answers.

If a non-member individually opens/redeems the shared file link first, the agent then works for them — but this requires manually sharing links with every user, which does not scale for 70–80% of the org.

What we want / expected behavior:

We want the "Connect to continue" allowance prompt to appear again for non-member users, so they can authenticate their access and receive answers — exactly as it worked before the update.

We want to share the agent broadly (70–80% of org) without having to grant every user direct membership or send individual file links.

We want to keep the underlying Excel/data files private (not exposed to all users for download), while still allowing the agent to answer their questions.

Questions for the community / Microsoft:

Is the missing FederatedKnowledgeSearchOperation / "Connect to continue" prompt a known issue in the new Copilot Studio experience?

Is there an ICM / fix in progress?

What is the recommended way to let broadly-shared users get answers from a SharePoint/Excel knowledge source without giving them direct file access or requiring each user to redeem a sharing link individually?

Is there a setting in the new experience to restore the allowance prompt behavior?

Any guidance or confirmation would be greatly appreciated. This is currently blocking our rollout. Thank you.

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Autonomous agents

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11manish 4,267 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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I would classify the situation as follows:

Most likely: SharePoint permission/security-trimming or authentication-state issue.

Possible: Copilot Studio new-experience regression, but not yet proven or publicly confirmed.

Best immediate action: Test one affected user's direct SharePoint access + Microsoft 365 Copilot retrieval and verify the agent's Microsoft authentication

configuration.

Best long-term architecture: If the Excel files genuinely need to remain inaccessible to users, move the business data into a controlled data/knowledge layer

rather than relying on SharePoint files as the protected backend.

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Valantis 7,088 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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Hi @Bharat_Kurde,

Others are hitting the same thing since the new experience rollout.

The "Connect to continue" prompt disappearing for non-members is a regression, not something you misconfigured.

SharePoint knowledge sources use Entra ID and only return content the signed-in user can access. That prompt was what let non-members authenticate at runtime. Without it, they hit the security trimming wall silently and get nothing.

For your setup specifically, the cleanest fix is switching the SharePoint knowledge source to use maker-provided credentials instead of end-user credentials. That way the agent always authenticates as you against SharePoint and users don't need any SharePoint access at all. No prompt needed.

Check the knowledge source settings for a credentials or connection option.

If that option isn't available in your build yet, the next best path is moving the Excel data into Dataverse or a Fabric semantic model. Both handle broad agent access without relying on per-user SharePoint permissions.

Raise a support ticket with your tenant ID and the date it stopped working, referencing FederatedKnowledgeSearchOperation. Microsoft hasn't publicly confirmed an ICM yet but multiple tenants are seeing this.

Best regards,

Valantis ✅ If this helped solve your issue, please Accept as Solution so others can find it quickly.

❤️ If it didn’t fully solve it but was still useful, please click “Yes” on “Was this reply helpful?” or leave a Like :).

🏷️ For follow-ups @Valantis.

📝 https://valantisond365.com/ 💼 LinkedIn ▶️ YouTube

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