In this article, we explore AttachmentExtractor’s impact on the AI capabilities like “AI summaries with Copilot” in Microsoft Dynamics 365. For background information, AttachmentExtractor is used to move content on Dataverse to external storage, such as SharePoint and AzureBlob, to reduce storage costs. Meanwhile, AI relies on your data to learn and give proper responses. To see what impact our extraction has on these AI options, we ran some tests.
The good news: Across all test scenarios, no significant differences were found in the contextual accuracy of summaries produced by Copilot, regardless of when the data was created or extracted.
Overview of Test Scenarios
Our tests focused on determining whether extracting emails (email-content) and attachments from Dataverse into external storages such as SharePoint (SP) and Azure Blob (AZB) impacted the AI summary options of Copilot. Specifically, four different scenarios were analyzed:
- Activate Copilot before date entry and extraction
- Dynamics 365 CE was created, and Copilot functions and case summary were activated.
- Test data (emails with attachments) was then generated and linked to existing cases, followed by using AttachmentExtractor to extract attachments and email content.
- Activate Copilot after data entry and extraction
- Dynamics 365 CE was created, test data (emails with attachments) was generated and linked to existing cases, followed by extracting attachments and email content.
- The Copilot case summary was activated after the data was extracted.
- Activate Copilot Between data entry & extraction
- Dynamics 365 CE was created, and test data (emails with attachments) was generated and linked to existing cases, followed by the activation of Copilot functions and case summary.
- AttachmentExtractor was then used to extract attachments and email content.
Findings: Impact of AE on Summaries Generated by Copilot
Although minor variations have been detected in the wording and length of the summaries, the core information remained consistent. In some cases, identical sentences appeared in different summaries, suggesting that Copilot’s ability to maintain context was largely unaffected by AE or the timing of data generation. However, as described in the next two sections, there are some key takeaways to consider.
It is also important to note that Copilot regenerates the summary each time the Dynamics 365 CE form is loaded, which ensures the most up-to-date summary, albeit with some variability in structure and phrasing.
Consideration 1: Email Body Truncation
One potential issue found in testing relates to email body extraction. For emails containing long histories or extensive text, AE truncates the content after a certain length. As a result, Copilot summaries generated using this shortened content are less comprehensive. They are missing context from the truncated portion of the email body. This poses a potential challenge for Dynamics 365 CE users relying on full and accurate summaries.
Consideration 2: Email Attachments Not Yet Analyzed by Copilot inside Dynamics 365
Another crucial observation is that attachments themselves (Word documents, PDFs, images, text files, etc.) are not currently analyzed by Copilot. The summaries generated did not include any reference to the contents of the attached files, which could provide valuable context. After consulting with Microsoft, they confirmed that there are no immediate plans to enable Copilot to analyze attachments within Dynamics 365.
This could even be seen as an additional benefit of our AttachmentExtractor: Moving files to SharePoint automatically enables customers to utilize the Copilot features available on SharePoint to analyze files.
Relevance of Tests
The results of these tests are important because they show that Dynamics 365 users can be confident that AI-generated summaries remain reliable in terms of contextual accuracy, regardless of when data is created or extracted. Especially since Microsoft Copilot does not currently analyze attachments, and is not expected to in the near future. This helps maintain workflow efficiency and ensures that the summaries provide meaningful insights.
Overall, AttachmentExtractor does not significantly impact the summaries generated by Copilot. However, it does bring to light certain limitations, particularly with email body truncation and lack of attachment analysis.
Please note: This testing was done in September 2024 with the AI capabilities provided by Microsoft at that time. We will continue to run more tests as Microsoft adds and adapts AI capabilities. However, we cannot guarantee that these results will remain the same in the future.
That’s it! If you require further assistance or would like to share feedback, please reach out to us at support@mscrm-addons.com.