How IT organizations and M365 Admins can get started with Microsoft Copilot for Sales and Salesforce

  • Thread starter Thread starter Smita Shrivastava
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Smita Shrivastava

Microsoft Copilot for Sales brings sales data and insights into the flow of work to help sellers save time, focus on customers, and close more deals. Copilot for Sales is experienced within Microsoft 365 applications and connects directly to Salesforce© CRM for real-time data and updates.



General technical requirements




Copilot for Sales is available globally, supports 24 world languages, and works with the Professional (with API access enabled), Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions of Salesforce CRM. To use Copilot with Salesforce CRM, you must have a Microsoft 365 for Enterprise license and an Azure Active Directory account, which gives you access to Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook and Teams. Your organization must be on Outlook for Windows version 2206 (Build 15330.20196), and Outlook for Mac, version 16.78, to use the Outlook add-in. To take advantage of Teams Meeting sales insights, you should be on Copilot for Sales version 1.0.9 or higher. You can view Copilot for Sales application versions, session IDs, and other relevant application metadata easily for quick reference.





Permissions





Copilot for Sales uses your organization's existing access controls and user permissions in Salesforce CRM and M365 apps to deliver data and insights, always respecting your existing data security and privacy commitments. Salesforce CRM administrators must have the correct permissions to customize their CRM systems, and users must have the correct permissions to view, update, and create records in their CRM systems from Copilot for Sales. Salesforce administrators who need to customize Copilot for Sales must have Modify All Data or Manage Data integrations permissions, which need to be on the user's profile and not in permission sets assigned to the user. More information: Right permissions in Salesforce, Power platform env creation, Privileges required to use Copilot for Sales.



Installing Sales Copilot, enabling customization and AI capabilities




Microsoft 365 administrators can install Copilot for Sales and assign users/security groups to use it. As an admin, you can install the Copilot for Sales for Microsoft Outlook Add-In via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and the Copilot for Sales for Microsoft Teams App via the Teams Admin Center. Like other Microsoft 365 apps and services, you can also manage the license assignment using the Microsoft 365 admin center. End-users can also install the Copilot for Sales. However, Microsoft 365 tenant admins can explicitly block the app for end-users. We recommend that an administrator install Copilot for Sales for best performance and usability.

After Copilot for Sales is successfully installed, your Salesforce CRM administrator can customize Copilot for Sales for your organization and set up AI capabilities. With customized settings, organizations can specify which information to display for users in Outlook and which CRM records to edit directly from the Copilot. Learn more: A Step-by-step guide to deploy Copilot for Sales for Salesforce CRM



Data Security and Privacy




Copilot for Sales securely integrates Salesforce CRM data and actionable insights into Microsoft 365 applications by adhering to data privacy, security, retention, and compliance standards for the core data stores. These stores include Microsoft Graph for Microsoft 365 information, Salesforce CRM data, and Microsoft Dataverse for Copilot for Sales-specific data.

When the first user from a specific Azure Active Directory (AAD) tenant uses the Copilot for Sales for Microsoft Outlook Add-In to connect to their Salesforce organization, a new Microsoft Dataverse instance is provisioned for that organization. This instance is shared among all the connected Salesforce environments and organizations within the tenant. You can manage your Dataverse instance from the Power Platform Admin Center.

The Copilot for Sales app keeps data secure during transmission with Transport Layer Security (TLS) and authenticates all endpoints through Azure Active Directory (AAD) scoped to user permissions. When users connect to Salesforce via Copilot for Sales, they use their existing login credentials, which generate a Salesforce authentication token. The Copilot then uses this token to interact with Salesforce, ensuring that the user's permissions in Salesforce are always respected.



Copilot for Sales accesses three types of data - Salesforce CRM data, including standard entities like Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities, as well as configured custom entities; End-user Microsoft 365 data, such as emails and meeting data; and Copilot for Sales specific data, such as AI-generated email content and insights. Salesforce CRM data is viewed and updated directly in the CRM system in real-time. Copilot for Sales does not copy your CRM data to other systems, except when unique identifiers are used for mapping to Copilot for Sales-specific data. In some cases, Microsoft 365 data like emails and meeting content will be copied to the customer's CRM system for activity tracking or to Dataverse for Copilot for Sales-generated insights. For more details, you can visit Copilot for Sales Architecture Documentation.



AI Capabilities




The generative AI capabilities in Copilot for Sales are enabled through Azure Open AI services and leverage the latest developments in large language models (GPT 3.5) along with your organization's CRM and Microsoft 365 data. Copilot for Sales does not apply semantic indexing today. Most importantly, Copilot for Sales does not use customer data to train AI models. and it only accesses customer data when needed to create insights. When accessing your CRM and Microsoft 365 data, Copilot for Sales always works with existing user permission and respects the rules set for the data. Copilot for Sales uses Azure OpenAI for AI insights but does not manage or retain the content sent to Azure OpenAI for monitoring, preventing misuse, or enhancing capabilities. No Microsoft staff can access this content. Moreover, customers are solely responsible for the use of AI-driven features, including their end users' use. Since Azure OpenAI Service availability varies by region, using Copilot features with Azure OpenAI may involve data storage or processing outside your geographic area or compliance boundaries. Learn more about Data Residency in Azure and read our Privacy Statement. Finally, Copilot for Sales complies with GDPR throughout its data handling processes. For example, users can delete their personal data from Copilot for Sales at any time by deleting their account.

Staying up to date with changes and monitoring app usage




Copilot for Sales updates are released monthly and are automatically delivered to all users, requiring no action from admins or end users. In rare cases, explicit consent and action may be added for admins and/or users for certain updates. Microsoft communicates these updates through the “What’s New” section in the Microsoft Copilot for Sales documentation and Copilot for Sales blogs.



Monitoring of Copilot for Sales is supported via native Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams usage. As an admin, you can track usage metrics for the Copilot for Sales for Microsoft Outlook Add-In via Microsoft 365 Reports and for the Copilot for Sales for Microsoft Teams App through the Microsoft Teams app usage report.



Sales Copilot adoption




To drive user adoption, you should follow your organization’s best practices on change management. This typically involves creating early adopter teams and training materials tailored to your business needs. Microsoft is committed to helping you get the most value from your investments and will share materials to aid adoption, such as Copilot and AI fundamentals, at the Microsoft AI help & learning site. You can leverage Microsoft’s best practices on driving Copilot for Sales adoption across 60,000 users, along with the user training guide, to get started today.



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