Before you start
This guide is written for IT admins. You'll need four things in place before you begin:
What you need | Why |
Filtered manager access to the admin integrations page | So you can start the connection and kick off syncs |
Rights to approve Entra consent for ExternalConnection.ReadWrite.OwnedBy and ExternalItem.ReadWrite.OwnedBy | Microsoft needs this before the connector can read or write anything |
MS365 admin rights to add and remove agents at the org level | For installing the Filtered agent later on |
MS365 admin rights to install and uninstall agents for groups or individuals | For rolling the agent out to specific teams |
Most of the steps below need to happen in order, so it's worth reading through once before you dive in.
Connector vs agent, what's the difference
Filtered gives you two separate pieces here, and it helps to know what each one is doing before you set anything up.
- MS365 Copilot connector ("Filtered Intelligence Graph Connector"): this is a data source. It feeds Filtered content into Copilot Search, Copilot chat agents, and apps like Word and Outlook whenever someone is using an agent inside those apps.
- MS365 declarative agent ("Filtered Intelligence Agent"): this is an agent you can open inside Word, Excel or Outlook. It understands the document you're working in, and it can also pull from the Filtered connector as a data source when it answers.
💡 The setup for this connector is identical to GetAbstract's Graph Connector, so if your team has set that one up before, this will feel familiar.
1. Set up the MS365 Copilot Graph connector
The Graph connector makes Filtered assets available anywhere Copilot is switched on: Copilot chat agents, Copilot search, Word, Excel, Outlook, all of it.
1.1 Start the admin consent screen
- Go to your organisation's Manage integrations screen and choose Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Manage integrations, with Microsoft 365 Copilot listed under Connections
- Paste your organisation’s tenant ID into the text field
- Click “Open Entra admin consent” to kick things off.
💡 If you want to redo this later, delete the existing connection first, you can do that any time. The first time round, only Open Entra admin consent will be clickable, that's expected.
1.2 Grant access to the Filtered application
Clicking the button sends you to a Microsoft access grant page. Here's what accepting it actually does:
- It grants the Copilot connector read and write access, but only to the "external items" part of your Graph database. Nothing else.
- Only one connection can be linked to an MS365 organisation at a time.
- Once you hit Accept, you'll be redirected back into Filtered's UI.
1.3 Set up the Graph connection
At this point Filtered has permission to create the Graph connection, and you should be back on the Manage integrations page in Filtered's UI.
- If something goes wrong here, you'll get a friendly error message asking you to contact Customer Success.
- Otherwise, the Provision connector button should now be enabled.
Click Provision connector to set up the connector's schema and establish the connection.
1.4 Schema provisioning
Provisioning kicks off a background job with its own progress tracker. It usually only takes a couple of minutes.
Filtered's admin screen while the connector is provisioning
This step converts Filtered assets into the schema below, on the external portion of your Graph database:
Property | Type | Searchable | Retrievable | Queryable | Refinable |
title | String | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
description | String | Yes | Yes | No | No |
subtitle | String | Yes | Yes | No | No |
url | String | No | Yes | No | No |
imageUrl | String | No | Yes | No | No |
formats | String collection | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
durationMinutes | Int64 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
provider | String | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
author | String | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
language | String | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
availability | String | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
publicationYear | Int64 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
✅ This is safe for your organisation. The Filtered connector only ever sees the data it ingests itself, never your existing Graph data or anything from other connectors.
A quick rundown of what those fields do:
- title, description, subtitle: free text used for full-text search. Title also acts as the display name.
- url, imageUrl: link fields. Retrievable only, tagged as the item's URL and icon.
- formats: a multi-value field (think "video" or "pdf") that's fully searchable and filterable.
- durationMinutes, publicationYear: numeric fields, good for filters like "under 30 minutes" or "published in 2024", but not searched as text.
- provider, author: searchable text fields. Author is tagged as the content's creator.
- language, availability: filter facets rather than search targets.
Once provisioning finishes, the Sync assets button becomes active and the connector shows up in your MS365 admin's connector list.
1.5 Check the connection in the MS365 admin centre
- Go to admin.cloud.microsoft.
- Expand the Copilot dropdown, then click Connectors.
The Copilot section of the MS365 admin centre sidebar
Filtered Intelligence should show up here as an External, Synced connector with a connection state of Ready.
1.6 Let the connector's data show up in Copilot
Even with a Ready connection, there's one more switch to flip. Click into the connector (Connectors → Filtered Intelligence) and you'll likely see this message:
⚠️ Data from this connection will not appear in Copilot Chat or Search Results. You can change this from the Copilot Visibility setting.
The warning that shows up until Copilot Visibility is turned on
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and turn on Copilot Visibility.
This makes Filtered assets eligible to appear in Copilot search and the default Copilot chat agent, once assets are synced.
1.7 Enable Filtered assets at the organisation level
Turning on visibility for the connector isn't quite enough on its own. It also needs to be switched on at the organisation level.
- In the MS365 admin centre sidebar, open Settings, then Search & intelligence.
The Settings dropdown, with Search & intelligence highlighted
- Go to Customisations → Verticals, select All, then Manage connector results.
Search & intelligence, Customisations tab, Verticals
- Toggle Include connector results on.
- Tick the checkbox for Filtered Intelligence.
- Click Save.
Filtered assets should now start surfacing in Copilot search as well.
1.8 Sync your assets
Head back to Filtered's UI, into admin and Manage integrations, and kick off a sync.
- Click Sync assets.
Assets exporting to the Microsoft 365 Copilot connector
This pushes your Filtered assets across as external assets, mapped to the schema you provisioned earlier.
⏳ This can take a few hours depending on how much content you have. It's completely safe to close the browser while it runs.
Once it's done, you'll see a summary. If anything failed to sync, you'll get a list of what didn't make it. If the whole sync fails, contact Filtered Customer Success if retrying doesn't fix it.
1.9 Confirm the sync worked
- Back in the MS365 admin centre, go to Copilot → Connectors and select Filtered Intelligence
The Indexed items count should now show a number well above zero.
1.10 Check the results
Once the sync has finished and visibility is switched on both for the connector and the organisation, head to m365.cloud.microsoft and search for something. You should see Filtered results appear alongside everything else.
For example, searching "O2C Process Optimization" turned up 207 relevant assets from Filtered in one of our test runs.
2. Setup the "Filtered Connective Intelligence" MS365 agent
⚠️ This section assumes the Graph connector from section 1 is already connected. Without it, the agent behaves like a standard Copilot agent, it won't be aware of any Filtered assets.
2.1 Install methods
The Filtered Connective Intelligence agent isn't yet certified by Microsoft, so install method depends on where things stand:
Right now, install from zip:
- In the MS365 admin centre, go to Agents, then All agents.
- Click the ••• menu on the right, then Add agent.
- Upload the zip file provided by Filtered.
Coming soon, install from Marketplace: once certified, this will be the only way to install the agent. The zip method will be retired.
2.2 Manage who can use the agent
- In the MS365 admin centre, go to Agents, then All agents.
- Select the Filtered agent.
- Go to Users.
- Choose who gets access: everyone in the org, or specific users and groups.
2.3 Confirm the agent is available
Once deployed, the agent should show up in two places:
- The Copilot dashboard, under Agents.
- The Agents tab inside Word, Excel and Outlook.
2.4 Confirm the agent's Graph permissions
Worth double checking the agent picked up the same permissions as the connector.
- In the MS365 admin centre, go to Agents, then All agents.
- Select the Filtered agent.
- Go to Permissions.
You should see the following listed:
