Prerequisites - Erithano/Timon-Your-FAQ-bot-for-Microsoft-Teams GitHub Wiki

🚀 To deploy Timon, you will need:

View our AI✨ documentation to get familiar with your options.

  • To be able to create new team OR already own a team in Microsoft Teams

  • Access to Microsoft Copilot Studio (previously PVA) in Teams, an app for creating bots in Teams (🔗 Open in Teams)

  • Access to Developer Portal, an app for creating and editing Teams Apps within Teams (🔗 Open in browser

  • Recommended: Have Upload custom apps enabled for you. Needed at end, so you can start without it. It enables quick private testing of the end-user app experience in Teams. PS. It can take up to 24 hours for the upload custom apps option to appear in Teams after it has been enabled by a Teams administrator. So wait at least that long before getting angry and smashing your computer. 😉

  • Finally, for the final step in the Deployment Guide, you will need a Teams Administrator or Global Admin with access to the Teams Admin Center in order to pin Timon to everyone in your organization.

Already have the above ⬆️? Nice. Let's move on then.

👍 Good to know before you deploy:

• Technology

Timon is built using Microsoft Copilot Studio ("PVA") and Power Automate. Both are low-code/no-code Microsoft solutions that make app and bot development accessible to everyone.

Once deployed to your own environment, you can easily edit Timon's knowledge and capabilities in Copilot Studio. You're also able to rebrand/rename Timon there and in Developer Portal.

• Licensing

Timon was created with the Power Virtual Agents in Teams plan (included in most Microsoft/Office 365 subscriptions) in mind. Deploying Timon WITHOUT ENABLING AI out-of-the-box should come at no extra cost to your organization. With AI you need one $200 Copilot Studio License (PVA), or trial. Depending on your AI version of Timon you may need access to Azure OpenAI in your Azure subscription (Option 1 - Timon AI Hybrid).

To keep it short: If you are an employee of any regular business or organization, then you most likely have access to this offering and can use and deploy Timon, without AI, to your organization for free. To enable AI you need the above.

💡 For more details, we recommend looking at the official licensing documentation provided by Microsoft.

• Multilingual deployment

Timon is available in multiple languages!

Copilot Studio currently only supports one main language per bot. Each language is therefore its own bot.

❗ IMPORTANT ❗

To avoid bugs and many future headaches, it is HIGHLY recommended that you create ONE TEAM per LANGUAGE.

💡 The team is just a place for Timon to "exist" - this is the back-end environment where the bot information, power automate flows and knowledge database are stored (also known as a Teams Dataverse Environment). Bot interaction scope is not limited to this specific team. In other words, Timon can interact with other teams, team channels and users. A regular Dataverse environment is recommended if you have a license for Copilot Studio and want to use AI.

• Development

This is a passion project developed and supported by many Microsoft employees all over the world. Hundreds of hours have gone into creating the bot, translating the content and adjusting it to the "Power Virtual Agents for Teams" plan. Now updated with AI which requires a standalone license for Copilot Studio as mentioned.

🤍 Created by: Erik Olsson ([email protected])

🤍 Supported by: Patricia Zemer, Max Baldt, and many, many others...

• Reminder

Timon is not an official Microsoft template. All work is provided "as is" with the hope of joy and appreciation of the recipient.

The Timon template comes without any support or warranties.