Tech Ease

Could one prompt build the whole escape room? Not perfectly, and Copilot will still get something wrong now and then. But a better prompt does catch the mistakes you've already paid for once. In part 2 of the Jul Escape Room, I walk through the prompt behind my escape room game, section by section, and show what I changed after building it once with Copilot in SharePoint.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ihUqhvoDoqs
Play the game: https://anandragav.github.io/copilot-html-dashboards/jul-escape-room/
Download the skill package (skill, startup prompt and template): https://github.com/anandragav/copilot-html-dashboards/releases/download/jul-escape-room-v1/jul-escape-room-skill.zip
Heads up, the startup prompt contains every answer and the final code, so play the game first if you'd rather not know.
If the game shows a red error box, see 'Check your list before you play' in the skill package.
The prompt has been updated since recording. It now ends with a checklist for your list, with what each error message means.
PnP SharePoint Skills pull request (still in review): https://github.com/pnp/sharepoint-skills/pull/98

Missed part 1? Listen to S4E41: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3qZvde6okJicrQPrG8iOYB

Can a SharePoint list run an escape room game? Anand built one, the Jul Escape Room, using a SharePoint list and its new HTML dashboard view, with help from Copilot in SharePoint. He walks through the festive house players explore, from the Entrance Hall, Greta's Kitchen, the Workshop, Uggla's Library and Mira's Attic to the final door, and the kinds of puzzles waiting inside. He explains how the list holds the content while the generated view runs the game, what playtesting changed, and how the idea grew out of his earlier bingo game and quiz. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6c3yeMb44wY Tech Ease on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1

You don't need to write code to put a clickable 3D page on SharePoint. In episode 2 of Inside Halloween Haunt, I show two no-code starting points with the interactive-3d-scene skill: upload the finished Halloween Haunt sample, or prompt a new themed scene from the skill's starter template.

What you need

• A SharePoint site you can edit, and permission to create a draft page or save a file in a library
• Copilot in SharePoint, or a coding agent that can work from a skill folder
• The interactive-3d-scene skill, in PnP SharePoint Skills: https://pnp.github.io/sharepoint-skills/
• No Babylon.js knowledge

Option 1: upload the Halloween sample

1. Download the Halloween sample HTML file from the skill's samples folder.
2. In SharePoint, choose New, then HTML page.
3. Under "Or bring your own HTML," choose Upload an HTML file and pick the file. It opens as a draft you can edit and publish.

Option 2: the starter prompt (fill in the square brackets before you paste)

Use the interactive-3d-scene skill. Start from templates/starter-scene.html. Do not fetch Babylon or any other library from a CDN, and do not paste a copy of the library into the file. Keep the template's ka-lib-manifest script line for "babylon" exactly as it is, near the top, before any other script. Build a new clickable 3D scene for SharePoint on this theme: [THEME]. Headline: [HEADLINE]. I want these tappable objects: [OBJECT 1, OBJECT 2, OBJECT 3]. Keep all CSS and JavaScript inside the file. Do not add remote images, fonts, audio files, network requests, or browser storage. Sound must stay off until the visitor turns it on. Include a finished 2D SVG drawing of the same scene as the fallback, and support ?mode=2d so I can force that drawing. Respect prefers-reduced-motion by turning big shakes and spins into a gentle glow. Use real buttons, a live status line, and keyboard access (number keys for the objects, M for sound). Don't publish or upload anything until I say so. Show me the page and a short list of what I can tap.

Where the page can live

• A draft HTML page in Site Pages
• A standalone .html file in a document library, opened with ?web=1

How to check it: the line under the scene should start with "Moving scene." "Still view" means the flat drawing is showing. Don't fix that by adding a CDN or a script tag.

What happened when I tried it: theme Winter, headline Winter Wonderland, a snowman, sled and pine tree. Copilot in SharePoint used the skill and built a working chat preview, with a button for each object, sound off and the status line reading "Moving scene." It saved nothing until I clicked Save as file, then put the file in Documents without saying where, so ask Copilot where it saved it. I asked it to copy the file into Site Pages, and the same 3D scene loaded as a working page. My first save failed and closing the preview lost it; asking Copilot to recreate it was quick.

Next: the code track opens the Halloween yard feature by feature. Follow-up prompts are in the finale, episode 10.

Try the haunted yard: https://anandragav.github.io/copilot-html-dashboards/halloween-haunt/

Chapters

0:00 Two no-code ways to a 3D SharePoint page

0:18 What you need

0:43 What the skill does

1:17 Option one: upload the Halloween sample

1:46 Option two: where your page can live

2:06 The starter prompt

2:40 My winter test with Copilot in SharePoint

3:13 Check the line under the scene

3:43 Next time

SharePoint and Copilot captures have details masked; yard footage recorded from the Halloween Haunt page; cards marked ILLUSTRATION are drawn. Independent, not affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, SharePoint and Copilot are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

Episode 1: Inside Halloween Haunt: How This 3D SharePoint Series Works, https://youtu.be/gfyeg56QEXI

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Yp_HG3VUeNg

Tech Ease on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18

Follow Tech Ease on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1

Inside Halloween Haunt is a free 10-episode Tech Ease series that takes the 3D Halloween Haunt SharePoint page apart, one surprise at a time, on two tracks: a code track (episodes 3 to 9) and a no-code track (episode 2 and the finale).

In this short intro I walk through how the series works. A haunted front yard lives on a SharePoint page: a ghost slips out of the tower window, a witch cackles past the moon, and a parade of ghost cars rolls down the path. Part One was the tour of the yard, and Part Two, How to Build Interactive 3D HTML Pages in SharePoint, was the build story. This series goes inside.

What the episode covers:

• The code track (episodes 3 to 9): each episode starts with a feature you can see in the yard (the camera, the sound, the ghost, the witch, the parade) and then opens the code behind it. Feature first, code second.
• The no-code track (episode 2 and the finale): in episode 2 you put the finished Halloween page on your own site and paste a first prompt for a 3D scene of your own. The finale comes back to prompts, one for each feature the code track opened. If code isn't your thing, go straight from episode 2 to the finale.
• Two things worth knowing: if your device asks for less motion, the yard calms down (the ghost fades in and out near the tower instead of flying), and every surprise you can tap also has a button that does the same thing, with the same line of text.
• Every episode is free.

Chapters

0:00 A haunted yard on a SharePoint page

0:16 Quick catch-up: Part One and Part Two

0:35 Two tracks: the code track

0:55 The no-code track

1:16 Before we start: less motion, taps and buttons

1:39 Next time

Footage recorded from the Halloween Haunt page; the SharePoint capture has details masked; cards marked ILLUSTRATION are drawn. Microsoft and SharePoint are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

Free Part One tour: https://youtu.be/--oGsHe1k2k

Episode 2: How to Vibe-Code a 3D SharePoint Page Without Writing Code

https://youtu.be/Yp_HG3VUeNg

Try the haunted yard: https://anandragav.github.io/copilot-html-dashboards/halloween-haunt/

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gfyeg56QEXI

Tech Ease on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18

Follow Tech Ease on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1

Tech Ease is independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.

#HalloweenHaunt #SharePoint #3DSharePoint

Copilot in PowerPoint builds decks from your brand kit, but how on-brand they look depends on your template. Copilot uses your template's sample slides first and its layouts second, and when there aren't enough sample slides it falls back to the slide master, which Microsoft says may give less optimal results. In the final part of his four-part series, Anand goes through getting your company template ready for Copilot, checking it with Template assessment, and the two settings that keep Copilot on brand.

What the episode covers:
- Why sample slides matter most: Microsoft's advice is "If you only have time for one thing, add sample slides." Make them representative, complete slides at light, medium and heavy density, not libraries of icons or charts.
- Template structure: put main content in placeholders, not text boxes. Use theme colors and fonts instead of manual formatting, and editable tables and charts instead of pictures of them. Create and save the template in PowerPoint for Windows or Mac, as .pptx or .potx. Brand kit is available in PowerPoint for Windows, Mac and the web.
- Template assessment: made for brand managers. It runs automatically when you add a template to a brand kit (Templates, then Add template), and you can run it on an existing template from More options (...), then Template assessment. It checks the template file, slide master, theme, placeholders and sample slides. Each row is marked Suggestion or Pass, with Why it matters and How to improve. It never changes your file or blocks saving. Select Copy results to share the report. A Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) license is required.
- Fixing with Copilot: in Copilot in PowerPoint, enter Microsoft's prompt ("Fix the template issues from the checker report, keeping the existing design and slide count:") and paste the copied results after it. Copilot might ask how you want to act on the report: Fix the existing slides, Fix and expand examples, or Explain the report first. Then save, upload the template again and reassess.
- Strict brand adherence and note instructions: strict mode is one setting for the whole brand kit. It keeps Copilot to your approved template and slide master layouts, with no new layouts and no added or removed placeholders. Note instructions are plain-language rules in a template slide's speaker notes, such as "Always include this cover slide" or "Don't modify this slide". Placeholder text is used for styling only, not as instructions. Only the brand kit owner or a brand manager can change these settings, and people using the template can't override them.

This wraps up the four-part series: Copilot itself, built-in skills, custom skills and brand kit.

Chapters
0:00 Where part three left off: the template
0:26 What Copilot learns from your template
1:34 Template assessment
2:35 Fixing the results with Copilot
2:59 Two settings: strict brand adherence and note instructions
3:48 Looking back over the series
4:07 One step this week

Some screenshots: Microsoft Support ("Build templates that work well with Copilot", "Keep your presentation on-brand with Copilot", "Manage template settings in your Brand Kit for Copilot in PowerPoint"), with the demo company names masked. Other screens come from a Microsoft 365 tenant with details masked. Scenes marked ILLUSTRATION are drawn, not captured.

Part one: Copilot in PowerPoint: Skills, Custom Skills and Brand Kit Explained
https://youtu.be/uFVfNL_VirE

Part two: Copilot in PowerPoint built-in skills
https://youtu.be/-T3weF2p5T8

Part three: Custom Skills in Copilot in PowerPoint: How to Write, Record and Share Your Own
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3KmzfnceE2ce3z8XyzGjeF

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-PrNigSn8tk
Tech Ease on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18

Follow Tech Ease on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1

Tech Ease is independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.

#CopilotInPowerPoint #Microsoft365Copilot #PowerPoint

You can teach Copilot in PowerPoint your own way of working with a custom skill: a folder holding one SKILL.md file, with a name, a description that tells Copilot when to use the skill, and your instructions. In part three of his four-part series, Anand goes through writing one, recording one and sharing one with your team.

What the episode covers:
- The menu label: Microsoft is replacing the Agents, Agents & Skills and Customize buttons with a single Plugins button, finishing by late November 2026, because a plugin can bundle skills, agents, connectors and MCP servers. Your menu may say "Choose plugins" or "Manage plugins & skills" where earlier episodes said "Choose skills" and "Manage skills".
- What a skill file looks like: the frontmatter at the top of SKILL.md (name and description) and the instructions below it. Start the description with "Use when" and name the situation. The folder name must match the name in SKILL.md, or Copilot skips the skill. Renaming the folder hides a skill without deleting it.
- Three ways to add a skill besides recording: in Manage skills (or Manage plugins & skills), select Add, then type the skill into the form or upload a skill file (.md, or .zip for a skill with extra files). Or copy the skill folder into your Skills folder in OneDrive yourself. All three end up in that same OneDrive folder. Call a custom skill the same way as a built-in one: the + button, then Choose skills, or @ and the skill's name.
- Record a skill: available in PowerPoint for Windows, Mac and the web. Tips: record one clear outcome at a time, keep it under 10 minutes, remember that voice narration and actions in other windows aren't recorded, and wait for Copilot's last change to appear before you select Stop. Good candidates include recurring slide formatting, table cleanup, chart styling, logo placement, layout changes and regular presentation updates. Review the drafted name, description and instructions before you upload.
- Sharing with your team: admins can deploy organization skills from the Microsoft 365 admin center (a .zip with the skill, a manifest and two icons) to everyone or to chosen users and groups. Generally available in PowerPoint for Windows; the web and Mac started in Frontier. Brand managers can also add a skill to a brand kit, as a .md or .zip file or typed in, and anyone with access to that brand kit can use it.

Custom skills are personal and available in PowerPoint for Windows, Mac and the web.

Part one covered the four layers, part two the built-in skills, and part four is about brand kit and getting your company template ready for Copilot.

Chapters
0:00 Layer three: custom skills
0:23 One note on labels: Plugins
0:39 What a custom skill is
0:59 Writing the description (and the folder-name rule)
1:32 Three ways to add a skill
2:01 Recording a skill: Microsoft's tips
2:50 Sharing with your team: admins or brand kit
3:49 Wrap-up: one thing to try this week

Screenshots: Anand's own Microsoft 365 tenant, details masked (names, employer and company brand blurred). Menu names can differ by tenant; this one shows "Choose plugins", "Manage plugins" and "Organisation". Scenes marked ILLUSTRATION are drawn, not captured.

Part one: Copilot in PowerPoint: Skills, Custom Skills and Brand Kit Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFVfNL_VirE

Part two: Copilot in PowerPoint built-in skills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T3weF2p5T8

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gcksMQ-aHZ4
Tech Ease on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18

Tech Ease is independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.

#CopilotInPowerPoint #Microsoft365Copilot #PowerPoint

Copilot in PowerPoint comes with built-in skills you can call from the plus button (Choose skills) or by typing @ and the skill's name. In part two of my four-part series, I go through them one at a time. First come the everyday ones: Visualize this slide, Review this presentation, Prepare for Questions, Clarify my thinking and Create interactive slide. Then come three Frontier skills: Sharpen slide titles, Explain this presentation and Add explainer video. Last is Create a sales pitch, which is rolling out to everyone through late November 2026 and is only on the web for now, along with Review sales pipeline, Prepare internal sales review, Prepare customer review deck, Draft proposal response and a project kickoff skill. Part three is about making your own skill, and part four is about brand kit.

This episode follows part one, Copilot in PowerPoint: Skills, Custom Skills and Brand Kit Explained.

Chapters

0:00 Built-in skills: how to call them

0:57 Everyday skills you can use now

3:10 The early ones (Frontier)

4:05 Create a sales pitch

4:40 Wrap-up: one thing to try this week

Screenshots: my own Microsoft 365 tenant, details masked. Menu names can differ by tenant. Mine shows "Choose plugins" and "Visualise" where Microsoft's wording says "Choose skills" and "Visualize". Scenes marked ILLUSTRATION are drawn, not captured.

Follow Tech Ease so you catch the next part.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-T3weF2p5T8

Follow Tech Ease on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1

Tech Ease on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18

Related episodes

Copilot in PowerPoint: Skills, Custom Skills and Brand Kit Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFVfNL_VirE

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3fvvQLCrQSAFxhIgL9b37j

Tech Ease is independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.

#CopilotInPowerPoint #Microsoft365Copilot #PowerPoint

Copilot in PowerPoint can now build decks from a prompt or a Word file, edit and visualize your slides, and follow your own skills and your company's brand kit. In this first episode of a four-part series, I give a high-level tour of the four layers: Copilot itself, built-in skills such as Prepare for Questions, custom skills you write or record, and Brand Kit. For each one, I cover what you can use today and what is still rolling out.

The episode builds on the earlier Tech Ease episodes Agents vs Skills and How Much of the Work Are You Handing Over?

Can't find it? Copilot opens from the icon at the bottom right of PowerPoint for Windows, Mac and the web.

Chapters
0:00 One deck, four layers
0:49 Layer 1: Copilot
2:09 Layer 2: Built-in skills
3:37 Layer 3: Custom skills
4:24 Layer 4: Brand kit
4:55 Wrap-up: where to start

Screenshots: my own Microsoft 365 tenant, details masked. Menu names can differ by tenant. Mine shows "Choose plugins" where Microsoft's wording says skills.

Follow Tech Ease so you catch the next part.
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFVfNL_VirE
Follow Tech Ease on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1
Tech Ease on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18

Related episodes
Copilot Agents vs Skills
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHl5mBq2s1Q

Which Copilot Tool Should You Use? Chat, Agent Builder, Studio, Cowork and Autopilot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pkXDUv0dIQ

Tech Ease is independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.

#CopilotInPowerPoint #Microsoft365Copilot #PowerPoint

SharePoint and Copilot can keep business-card files and extracted contact details together in a document library, using autofill columns and a file upload form instead of a custom Power Automate flow for this setup.

I explain a real support request: a colleague wanted names, companies, job titles, phone numbers and email addresses from business-card images in a shared Excel table, but ran into licensing and connection trouble. I proposed a SharePoint library so the file and its details stay side by side.

This episode covers describing a library to Copilot in SharePoint, setting up autofill columns, submitting files through a file upload form, and checking the extracted information. Setting up autofill needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence; the episode also explains processing later uploads from people without that licence.

This replaces the Excel table; it does not update Excel. Power Automate may still be needed for approvals, notifications or processes that depend on Excel. At recording time, the colleague had not tried the proposed setup—there is no completed rollout or tested outcome to report.

Screens are my own demo screenshots with tenant details, names and sample values masked; other scenes are illustrations. The sample card shown was a made-up HTML file generated by Copilot, not a photographed card.

Follow Tech Ease on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1
Tech Ease on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18

Chapters
00:00 The business-card request
00:25 Why split card images and contact data?
00:48 A capability needs a real use case
01:16 SharePoint libraries and Copilot autofill columns
01:38 Describe the library to Copilot
02:25 A made-up sample card, with data beside it
02:48 The SharePoint file upload form
03:19 Checking extracted data and Copilot licensing
03:56 When Power Automate is still the right tool
04:18 The colleague has not tested it yet
04:34 Start with the outcome, not the flow

Related episode — a different way to bring tasks into Copilot:
Copilot UX Components Explained: Forms Inside Microsoft 365 Copilot
https://open.spotify.com/episode/40vqHxJ3PleCsWfrKfZhhb

Tech Ease is independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENJaaCoTgxU

Copilot UX components bring interactive forms, quizzes and controls into a Microsoft 365 Copilot conversation, so you can take the next step without switching applications.Maya and I explain the value through a SharePoint document-submission example and the Weekly Pulse Quiz: choose a destination, supply the required information and review before submitting. This is a configured experience—not automatic filing of every document anywhere.We cover the SharePoint Framework (SPFx 1.24) connection, the earlier “SharePoint Copilot Apps” name, Microsoft-managed front-end hosting and existing sign-in. Hosting and sign-in do not grant extra data access: app review, API consent and the user's permissions still apply. External backends and services remain your responsibility.At general availability, users need the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on licence as well as their normal qualifying Microsoft 365 licence, an agent their organisation makes available, and a supported browser or desktop client. Components do not render on mobile at GA.The form and quiz screens are privacy-edited screenshots from our earlier Document Submission Form / Stay in the Flow and Weekly Pulse Quiz demos. Other visuals are conceptual illustrations. This is not a new live upload or a newly recorded Copilot quiz session.Follow Tech Ease: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Cd8NsDE7kdQmLnbXe8Xx1Watch Tech Ease: https://www.youtube.com/@anandvijayaragavan18Chapters00:00 Why finish a task inside Copilot?00:18 What are Copilot UX components?00:56 Who can use them? Licence and supported clients01:18 Document submission to SharePoint01:57 Why the agent needs a configured destination02:16 Review the destination before uploading02:52 Microsoft hosting, sign-in and permissions03:54 Packaging and distribution through the App Catalog04:19 Weekly Pulse Quiz: when interaction helps05:07 Start with one familiar task05:25 Follow Tech Ease and the takeawayScreenshots: earlier Tech Ease Document Submission Form / Stay in the Flow and Weekly Pulse Quiz demos; cropped and privacy-edited. Illustrations: Tech Ease production.Microsoft technical sources (checked by production on 8 November 2026, Europe/Stockholm):https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/copilot-ux-components-are-generally-available-bring-interactive-experiences-into-copilot/https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/spfx/release-1.24.0https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/spfx/copilot/development-and-deploymenthttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/spfx/copilot/access-dataTech Ease is independent and not affiliated with Microsoft.Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS0_EXB3Kk4

Related episodes: Copilot UX components in practice

Document Submission Form: save documents from Copilot Chat to SharePoint

Weekly Pulse Quiz: an interactive quiz for SharePoint and Copilot Chat