COPILOT WEEKLY
Wed, November 11, 2026
6-minute read
3 QUICK WINS · 2 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW · 1 FROM THE COMMUNITY
👋 Hello, Hello
Test your plan before someone else does, send the email that lands well, and find the thing you need in seconds.
IN 5 MINUTES, BE THE ONE IN THE OFFICE WHO KNOWS COPILOT:
Stress-test your plan before your boss does.
Check how your email will land before you send it.
Turn a long thread into three sentences for your manager.
Find a file by describing it.
Ask Copilot about a screenshot or chart.
Steal three lessons from someone who built 23 Cowork skills.
3 Quick wins
1. 🧨 Stress-test your plan before your boss does
Every plan has a hole, and it's better to find it yourself. Ask Copilot to imagine the project already failed and tell you why. This is called a pre-mortem, and it takes one prompt.
Open Copilot and paste your plan, or open the document that holds it.
Paste the prompt below.
Read the high-risk reasons first. Pick one and ask: "What's the smallest thing I can do this week to prevent that?"
The prompt: "Imagine it's six months from now and this project failed. Based on the plan below, list the 5 most likely reasons it failed, ranked high or medium risk. For each one, tell me the first warning sign I'd see and one thing I can do about it now. [PASTE YOUR PLAN]"
Copilot in Word stress-tests a business plan - PracticalyAI
Find the hole before your director does.
2. ✉️ Check how your email will land
You read your own email as you meant it. Your reader doesn't. Before you send something tense, ask Copilot to read it as the person who'll get it.
Write your draft, but don't send it.
Open Copilot and paste the prompt below with your draft and who it's going to.
Check which sentences it flags, then use its rewrite, or ask for a different tone
The prompt: "Read the email below as [WHO IT'S GOING TO, e.g. a director who is already frustrated]. Tell me how it will come across and which sentences could sound rude or unclear. Then rewrite it so it's firm but friendly, under 120 words. [PASTE YOUR DRAFT]"
Copilot checks an Outlook draft for tone before you send it - PracticalyAI
Ten seconds now, one awkward reply fewer.
3. 🧵 Turn a long thread into three sentences for your manager
Your manager doesn't want to read 40 messages. They want to know what was decided and what you need from them. Outlook has a Summary by Copilot at the top of a long email thread. For the manager version, ask for it in the shape they need.
Open the thread in Outlook.
Select Summary by Copilot at the top of the email to see the quick version.
For the manager version, open Copilot with the thread and paste the prompt below.
The prompt: "Summarize this email thread in 3 sentences for my manager: what was decided, what's still open, and what I need from them."
Summary by Copilot on a long email thread in Outlook - PracticalyAI
Forty messages in, three sentences out.
2 Things you didn't know you could do
1. 🔎 Find a file by describing it
You know the file exists. You just can't remember where it lives, or which version is the latest. Copilot Search looks across the files, emails, chats and meetings you can access, so you can describe it the way you'd ask a coworker.
Open Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Paste the prompt below with the project and person.
If the list is long, narrow it with the filters for who, file type or when it was changed.
The prompt: "Find the latest version of the [PROJECT] proposal that [PERSON] shared last month."
Good to know: it only finds what you already have access to.
Finding a document in Copilot by describing it - PracticalyAI
Describe it. Don't dig for it.
2. 🖼️ Ask Copilot about a screenshot or chart
A chart in a report you can't quite read, a screenshot of a table, a photo of a whiteboard. Attach it to Copilot and ask questions, instead of squinting at it.
Open Copilot Chat.
Attach your screenshot, chart or photo with the image button.
Paste the prompt below.
The prompt: "What's in this chart? Summarize the trend in one paragraph and highlight anything that looks unusual."
Copilot reads a chart screenshot and flags what looks unusual - PracticalyAI
If you can see it, you can ask about it.
1 From the community
🧪 What 23 Cowork skills taught one power user
A Redditor in r/microsoft_365_copilot spent weeks building and breaking skills, and kept 23. Their calendar skill once gave four paragraphs of advice about a perfectly fine week. That's when they changed how they write skills. Three lessons worth stealing:
Write the limits as "never" sentences. An instruction like "Never accept, decline, move or cancel anything" works. A vague one like "be careful with the calendar" doesn't.
Tell the skill when to say nothing. If it always finds something to report, you stop reading it. Give it a one-line answer for when there's nothing to flag.
Check what Microsoft already ships before you build. The poster deleted nine of their 23 skills after finding that the built-in Legal and Sales plugins did the same job better. Open Customize in Cowork and look at the built-in skills and plugins first.
Try this on a skill you already have: "If there is nothing to report, reply with one line saying so and stop."
Good to know: this is one person's experience, not Microsoft's documentation, so test it on your own setup.
A skill that knows when to stay quiet is one you'll keep reading.
🎤 Ask us anything. Show us what you built.
A Copilot question you can't crack, a prompt that won't land, a feature you keep seeing but don't quite get: reply to this email. Your questions decide what we cover next.
Built something with Copilot? A workflow, a prompt, an app your team actually uses? Reply and tell us. The whole point of this list is people sharing what they're shipping so everyone learns together.
That's your Copilot 3-2-1 for the week. Reply with the plan you'd stress-test first.
Kushank and team
Copilot Samaritan · Copilot Weekly is a PracticalyAI newsletter · practicaly.ai/copilot
