Answered

Analysing excel files

(1) Share

Report

Posted on by AlexMTE

Hello everybody,

I’m facing some issues with my Copilot Studio agent : it needs to analyze multiple Excel files, compare them against my criteria base (which can be a PDF), and then provide a comparison of the different responses found in those Excel files.

My agents is build with :

No topics
File structure is detailed in the instruction
GPT 5
General knwoledge on
web research off

I have 3 excel files and 1 PDF

I’ve tried several approaches with my Copilot Studio agent :

Using SharePoint as knowledge (Dataverse indexer)
Uploading files manually in the conversation
Testing different models (Chat, Reasoning)
Trying with the code interpreter and the differents models

but the results are confusing, for example:

If I ask my agent details about a specific part of my Excel file, it either gives random numbers, approximate data, or no data at all. Even with a general comparison.

If interpretor code and GPT 5 reasoning is activated it couldn't retrieve files in its sharepoint knowledge base, I need to upload them manually but i'm facing a lot of errors like system error, it doesnt respond or is stuck in trying to analyse files.

With no interpretor and with GPT 5, it cant retrieve my PDF but only 2/3 excel files and each time it struggle to find exact data.

It is too much random to be used right now so my thought are :

AI Builder could help, but it doesn’t accept Excel files. Do I need to implement a Power Automate /agent flow process to extract Excel content and send it to AI Builder for analysis?

Should I use Azure AI? Azure search ?

I can’t analyze large Excel files with Copilot Studio, while I can do it easily and effortlessly in SharePoint with the default agent. Maybe should I stuck with sharepoint agent but lose the custom approach.

Why is there so much differences between Agents from Sharepoint / copilot studio and M365 Chat while they use the same model?

Do you have any suggestions to improve the agent in Copilot Studio for data analysis?

Thanks for your help

Categories:

General topics

I have the same question (0)

All responses (3)

Answers (1)

Sort by

Verified answer

Romain The Low-Code... 2,564 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

Like (1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hello @AlexMTE

thanks for all the information :)

I think you were very close to succeed. AI Builder "prompt tool" is totally able to read excel file, below is how i just reproduce it

- enable code interpreter

- enable gpt 4.1 (not mini)

then click in the promp on the "..." and enable code

here is Excel demo file

and i had to switch to GPT 4.1 because with mini, indeed i had few error. but it can read it

And the rest of the use case is totally possible, i made it for my self : using document as source to compare

I created few weeks ago a video about how to create report and comparaison between CV and job content with AI builder with the job content as the "rules" documents.

I m sorry : my video are in french but i manually writted the translation in english so the sub are "ok" i think. (better then auto translate :) )

here is a video about using different method to compare different file, there is one with ai builder later in this video using source document and comparaison (i also show how to pass content from tchat) : https://youtu.be/rGIDE7_JwvU

here is another video about how to generate excel file and manipulate them : https://youtu.be/BUSfXj-lddY

if prefere english content from matthew about excel manipulation where he use document as input and excel as output from AI Builder prompt from copilot studio : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMlUcxqnU30

Hope this help, if yes please check the answer as answered in the checkbox, it's very important for the community and search engine

1 people found this reply helpful.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
AlexMTE 9 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hello @Romain The Low-Code Bearded Bear ! thank you for your message !

I tried Ai Builder and didn't know I could use code interptror thanks !

However, the results are still a bit messy. It only retrieves data from the first cell, and otherwise says that my Excel file doesn’t have data relevant to my criteria or just returns “none.”

My Excel file contains 15 sheets, each with a specific format. I tried to use only 1 sheet to test it to see if it was a format issue but it doesn't help

An example of my results :

My prompt :

I tried different prompts, some more complex than others, but the results are still the same

thank you for the videos ! already following you and matthew !

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Romain The Low-Code... 2,564 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

i found that Copilot / Chatgpt are great to help to build prompt for code interpreter, give it the file explaining a little bit about the case and worksheet and try the prompt it propose :) help me often a lot :)

Was this reply helpful? Yes No