Copilot Studio Kit: Using SharePoint-synced Dataverse data for Anonymous Users?

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Posted on by CU01041021-0

Hello,

I am evaluating the Copilot Studio Kit (Power CAT) for several clients. The goal is to leverage the automated SharePoint-to-Dataverse sync to power Generative Answers. However, most of these agents will be facing public/anonymous users (unauthenticated). I have encountered conflicting information regarding this setup, so I would appreciate a clear "Yes/No" or "It depends" on the following:

Technical Capability: Does the Copilot Studio Kit support querying the synced Dataverse tables when the bot is published for anonymous users?
Security & Licensing: If yes, can this be achieved without violating licensing terms or creating security loopholes for the underlying Dataverse environment?
Future-proofing: Are there reasonable guarantees that future updates to Copilot Studio’s native RAG capabilities or the Kit itself won't break this specific "sync-to-public-bot" workflow?

If this scenario isn't supported for unauthenticated users, it effectively rules out several of my current use cases.

Best regards,
Mats

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Giraldoj 872 Moderator on at

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Hi there!
The Copilot Studio Kit is not a development tool; it’s a kit designed to help you get more value from the agents you build.

The solution to your problem is not as straightforward as it might seem. SharePoint knowledge automatically tries to inherit the permissions of the user asking the questions, which means it will always require Microsoft authentication.

Because of this, external anonymous users won’t be able to access SharePoint data. You have two possible options here:

Option 1 is to build an agent in Copilot Studio and handle requests using Power Automate flows and AI Builder to generate responses. However, it’s important to clarify that this approach is not real RAG. The agent is not retrieving and grounding answers from an indexed knowledge base, but instead relies on orchestrated flows and prompt-based generation. This makes the solution quite tedious to build, harder to maintain, and less scalable, although it could work as a workaround in very specific scenarios.

Option 2 is more expensive but much more straightforward and robust. You would need Azure AI Search connected either directly to SharePoint or to Azure Blob Storage, with a Power Automate flow syncing documents from SharePoint. Once the Azure AI Search index is added as a knowledge source, your agent will be able to provide answers even without Microsoft authentication, following a proper RAG approach.

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CU01041021-0 on at

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Thanks for your response @Giraldoj!
Yes, I am aware that the Kit isn't a development tool per se. But since I get mixed messages browsing available Microsoft- and community articles, I had some hopes that the Sharepoint Update/Sync features in the Kit would be useful to support my use cases (public agents).

Crossing my fingers, I hoped that the files, uploaded directly to the environment Dataverse by the Kit, would result in the same behavior as if the files were uploaded manually from a drive; i.e. that the Sharepoint metadata would not get in the way as it will inside of Copilot Studio uploads. Just a few weeks ago, it was perfectly possible to upload Sharepoint files to Dataverse manually and get that to work for all users, including automatic sync of updated files. So my clients and I were quite happy for a while - but that feature is gone now which got me in trouble - hence my question.

I sincerely hope that Microsoft can address these use cases in the very near future. This must be a problem for almost every public agent out there, and handling hundreds (or more) files manually in a delete/upload/wait/update topics loop is not feasible.

And thanks for the Azure AI Search tip. This could be highly relevant for enterprise use cases with enough budget and internal developers - unfortunately not for the clients I work with for the time being.

Cheers/Mats

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