Teach Cowork your rules once. Let it handle the routine on a schedule.

Skills and automations in one minute

Open Microsoft 365 Copilot and select Cowork in the toggle next to Chat. Chat is for quick answers. Cowork handles work with several steps, and asks for your approval before important actions, like sending an email. It only uses email and files you can already access.

Two words do most of the work in this guide:

• A skill is the how. Reusable instructions for one kind of job, like answering license requests by your rules. Cowork saves it as a SKILL.md file in your OneDrive.
• An automation is the when. A schedule that tells Cowork to run a prompt, and that prompt can use your skill.

Skill for the rules, automation for the timing.

Steps 1–2: have Cowork find the repeat task, then check the evidence

Step 1: ask for recommendations only. Paste this into the Cowork task box. The last sentence keeps the first request read-only.

Step 2: check the evidence. Look at the emails behind the pick. Here every approval went out the same way, copying the help desk and the requester’s manager. A repeated reply with repeated rules is a business process, and processes can be automated.

Step 3: map the business process before you automate it

Every automation has the same four parts: when it runs, what it reads, the decisions it makes and what it does. Write yours down before you ask Cowork to build anything. The decisions are where your judgment lives, so spell them out as yes/no checks, and give each “no” a safe outcome.

For license requests, the decisions are:

1. Is it a license request I haven’t answered?If not, leave it alone.
2. Is the tool on my approved list?If not, no reply. It goes on my review list.
3. Is there a business reason?If not, reply and ask for one sentence explaining how they’ll use it.
4. Find the manager and write the approvalTo the requester, with the help desk and the requester’s manager on CC.
5. Guardrail: both on CC, and everyone @contoso.com?Send it. If anything is missing, don’t send: save a draft and flag it.

Step 4: turn the process into a skill, then share it

The when becomes the automation. Everything else becomes the skill. You can build a skill on the Customize page (Skills tab → Add → Create new), or just ask Cowork in chat. Cowork walks you through a name, a description that says when to use it, a category and the instructions, and saves the skill to your OneDrive.

Cowork also checks the skill and gives it a Skill Report. Because this skill sends email, the check looks for guardrails. Test it in a new conversation before you rely on it. Give it one sample request for each path on your map and check that each lands where the map says. For license requests that means one that should be approved, one with no business reason, one for a tool that isn’t on the list, and one with no manager on file. That last one has to stay a draft.

Share it with your backup. On the Customize page, open the skill, select Share, choose Specific users in your organization, add the person and select Apply. If you change the rules later, select Re-share so everyone gets the latest version.

Step 5: schedule the skill and stay in charge

Describe the schedule and name the skill. This is the demo’s version:

Cowork drafts the automation: when it runs, which skill it uses, and the permissions it needs. By default, Cowork asks for your approval before an automated task sends email. Keep that default for your first automation: approve each reply yourself and compare it with what you would have written. In the demo, sending was allowed when the automation was set up, and only to the company’s own addresses, because the process was already mapped and tested. Make that choice only after several runs where you approved every draft without changing it.

Activate waits for the next scheduled time. Activate and run now starts right away, so you can watch and approve actions. Watching the first run is a good habit. In the demo, four requests took four different paths: an approval went out with the help desk and the manager on CC, one person was asked for a reason, one tool that isn’t on the list waited for review, and one request with no manager on file stayed a draft. That last one is the guardrail doing its job.

Everything lives under Automations. Runs shows each run. Manage schedules lets you edit, pause, resume or delete. The task runs on schedule, even when you’re not there, and every run counts toward your organization’s Cowork usage. Microsoft bills Cowork by use, and admins can set a limit per person, so pick the least frequent schedule that does the job: once a weekday, not every hour.