Working with environments in Copilot for Service

With Copilot for Service, you can create copilots in different environments and easily switch between them.

An environment is a space to store, manage, and share your organization's business data. The copilots you create are stored in an environment (apps and flows are also stored in environments). Environments may also have different roles, security requirements and target audiences, and each environment is created in a separate location.

• Power Platform environments overview

Leverage environments

There are some common strategies for using multiple environments. For example, you can:

• Create separate environments that correspond to specific teams or departments in your company, each containing the relevant data and copilots for each audience.
• Create separate environments for different global branches of your company.
• Create separate environments to satisfy data residency requirements.

You can also build all your copilots in a single environment if you don't need or want to use different ones.

Create a new environment for your copilots

When you first sign in and create a new copilot, you have the option to create a trial environment if you don't have access to other Dataverse environments.

Create additional environments

You can, however, create additional environments by using the Power Platform Admin Center.

1. Go to https://admin.powerplatform.com and sign in using your work account. Use the same tenant that you use for Copilot for Service.

2. Go to the Environments tab and select + New to open the New environment pane.

   

   • For Name, specify a unique name for the environment.

   • For Environment select the environment type.

     Note

     A production environment is intended for production scenarios and won't be subject to the same restrictions as a trial environment. If you are trying out Copilot for Service, you'll need to make sure you set the environment to Trial. The standard limitations for trial environments apply.

   • For Region select United States.

     Important

     The environment needs to be created in the US region, otherwise you won't be able to use it when creating a copilot.

   • Set Create a database for this environment? to Yes

   • Select Next.

     

3. Specify the details of the database, such as the language and currency type, and then select Save.

4. You'll be returned to the Environments tab. Select Refresh to see the environment. You'll also see a notice explaining that it may take a few minutes to fully create the environment.

5. After the environment is created, you can return to the Copilot for Service portal and use the environment to create a new copilot.

Create a copilot in an existing environment

To create a copilot in an existing environment, select the environment in the copilot creation window.

Create a copilot in an existing environment where you don't have access

To create a copilot in an environment where you don't have access, you'll need to be a system administrator or contact the system administrator. You then need to complete the following:

1. Create a copilot in the environment (this step installs the necessary Copilot for Service solutions).

2. Assign the security role of "System Customizer" to yourself in the environment. For more information see Create users and assign security roles in the Power Platform admin documentation.

You can then return to the Copilot for Service portal and create a copilot in the environment.

For more information, see:

• Power Platform - Environments overview
• Power Platform - Configure environment security

Trial environments

When you try Copilot for Service, you can create trial environments that expire after 30 days. When the environment expires, all the copilots in the environment are deleted. The data associated with the copilot, including any flows and resources you have been using, is lost.

If you have created your own environment and selected Trial as the environment type, you'll receive email messages shortly before it expires. In the Copilot for Service portal, you'll also see a notification if you have copilots created in a trial environment that are going to expire in less than two weeks.

Converting a trial environment to a production environment

When using a trial environment and you want to retain the copilots for longer than 30 days, you must convert the trial environment to a production environment.

Supported operations

Copilot for Service supports the following environment lifecycle operations, as described in Power Platform environments overview:

• Back up and restore
• Delete
• Recover
• Copy
• Reset

The following operation is unsupported:

• Move

Known issues with creating a copilot

When you are creating your copilot, you might encounter the following issues.

Insufficient permissions for the selected environment

In this case, you see this error: "You do not have permissions to any environments. Please get access from an administrator."

You need to create a new environment. Use that environment to create your copilot.

The environment doesn't show up in the drop-down menu of Copilot for Service

Your environment might not show up in the drop-down menu due to one of the following:

• The environment doesn't have a database created. To resolve this issue, go to admin.powerplatform.com to create a database in your environment.
• The environment is created in an unsupported region. You must create an environment in the US region.