Set up the Expense Agent (Preview)

Applies to Dynamics 365 Project Operations Integrated with ERP and Dynamics 365 Project Operations for manufacturing

The Expense Agent brings together capabilities from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, finance and operations apps, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Power Automate, and Dataverse to automate expense processing workflows by using AI. This feature helps save time and reduce manual effort by enabling your system to process receipts and generate expense lines and expense reports for users. It uses Microsoft Power Platform connectors for integration with Outlook, Microsoft Teams, user calendars, and the finance and operations apps environment via Dataverse virtual entities.

The Expense Agent includes multiple flows, three of which serve as core orchestrators:

• Process Emails – This flow scans a configured mailbox folder every hour and stores the attachments as unattached receipts in Dynamics 365 Finance.
• Extract Receipt IDs – This flow picks up unattached receipts and triggers the agent to extract receipt details and create an unattached expense line.
• Process Expense Report – This flow converts unattached expense lines and generates expense reports, based on the Group reports by configuration that you set in the application for each legal entity.

Additionally, the agent integrates with Microsoft Teams, enabling the use of adaptive cards for expense report review and submission.

The agent relies on several Microsoft Power Platform connectors. These connectors are automatically referenced in the Power Automate flows that are provided.

• Outlook (Office 365) – This connector accesses the shared mailbox to extract receipts.
• Dataverse (Virtual Entities) – This connector integrates with finance and operations apps via virtual entities.
• Microsoft Copilot Studio – This connector invokes AI models to extract receipt information.
• Microsoft Teams – This connector sends adaptive cards for user interactions (if Teams integration is enabled).
• Microsoft 365 Users – This connector retrieves user calendar details (optional, if receipt parsing is context-aware).

Prerequisites

1. Finance and operations environment: You need at least version 10.0.45 (10.0.2345.170 and later), 10.0.46 (10.0.2428.108 and later), or 10.0.47 (10.0.2527.38 and later) of the finance and operations environment to install the agent.
2. Roles required to set up the Expense Agent user: To complete the steps in this article, you must be the system administrator of the organization and have the following roles to set up the expense agent user for installing the Expense Agent.

Steps to set up the Expense Agent

To install and set up the Expense Agent, follow these steps:

1. Install Copilot for finance and operations apps.
2. Enable the agent features in your environment.
3. Create an expense user for agent execution.
4. Set up a shared mailbox.
5. Set up the Expense Agent using the Agent deployment tool
6. Enable the Expense Agent in Microsoft Teams (Optional - if you need Microsoft Teams integration)

The following sections describe each step in detail.

Step 1: Install Copilot for finance and operations apps

The Expense Agent is available as part of the Copilot for finance and operations apps package. When you install this package in your environment, you automatically get all required assets, including the agent, environment variables, and Power Automate flows.

To install the required app, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Power Platform admin center in your browser.
2. From the list of environments, select the environment name where you want to install the app.
3. On the environment's details page (NOT from the left-hand navigation), go to the Resources section and select Dynamics 365 apps.
4. Search for Copilot for finance and operations apps within the Dynamics 365 apps list. If it's already installed and an update is available, select the Update button.
5. If the app isn't listed under Dynamics 365 apps, select Install app, select Copilot for finance and operations apps, and follow the prompts to complete the installation.
6. Copilot for Finance and Operations apps should be 1.0.3231.4 or later.

Step 2: Enable the agent features in your environment

After you install the Copilot for finance and operations apps package, activate the Expense Agent from within your Dataverse and finance and operations environment.

Enable feature in Dataverse

Turn on the Copilot feature flag in the Power Platform admin center. To turn on the Copilot feature flag, follow these steps:

1. Go to Power Platform admin center.
2. Select Environments > select your environment > Settings > Product > select Features.
3. Confirm that the Copilot feature flag is turned on.

Enable feature in your finance and operations environment

To activate the agent in finance and operations apps, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your finance and operations environment.
2. Go to Feature Management, and enable Immersive Home feature and Agent Management features.
3. To configure the Expense Agent (setup is per legal entity), go to Expense Management > Setup > General > Expense Management parameters.
4. On the Expense Entry Agent tab, configure the parameters as shown in the following table.

Step 3: Create an expense agent user for agent execution

Create a dedicated expense agent user to ensure that the agent runs independently of any employee's identity. This approach helps with security, manageability, and long-term maintainability. Although you can use an existing user account that has the required privileges, use a system-owned identity.

Create the Expense Agent user in Microsoft Entra ID

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. From the available Azure services, select Microsoft Entra ID.
3. Under Microsoft Entra ID, create a new user.
4. Select Add > User > Create new user, and enter the following details.
   • User principal name
   • Choose the right domain
   • Display name
   • Password
   • Mark Account enabled
5. To view the details and complete the user creation process, select Review + create, and select Create.
6. From the User page (Manage > Users), select a user, and the view details page.
7. Select Edit properties, navigate to the Settings tab, and fill out appropriate usage location.

Assign the required licenses to Expense Agent user

To successfully install Expense Agent, assign the following licenses to the expense agent user:

• Dynamics 365 Teams Members license
• Microsoft 365 Business Basic or any license that covers Microsoft Teams and Outlook (for example, Office 365 E5 with teams)
• Power Apps Premium

To assign licenses, follow these steps:

1. Sign into Microsoft 365 admin center with a user who has access to assign licenses that is a user with License Administrator or higher.
2. Select Billing > Licenses > Dynamics 365 Teams Members license.
3. Select +Assign licenses.
4. Search for the expense agent user created in previous step.
5. Select Assign to complete the license assignment.
6. Follow steps 2 to 5 for the other licenses – Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Power Apps Premium as well.

Add the user to the Power Platform environment

To add the user to the Power Platform environment, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center, and select the appropriate environment.

   Tip

   This page provides information related to Environment ID for Dataverse, Environment URL for Dataverse, finance and operations URL. Store these values to use in later sections.

2. Go to Access > Users > See all.

3. Select Add user, enter the newly created agent user, and select Add.

4. On Manage security roles page, add the following roles.

   • Expense AI Agent Role
   • Finance and operations Agent Configuration Manager
   • System Customizer

5. To confirm the role assignments, select Save.

These roles provide access to Dataverse and Power Automate components that the agent needs to function.

Assign the required role in finance and operations environment

To assign the ExpenseAgentRole role in finance and operations environment, follow these steps:

1. In the finance and operations environment, go to System administration > Users.
2. Create a user record for the agent user.
3. After creating the user, go to the user's roles section, select Assign roles, and search for ExpenseAgentRole.
4. Select Save.

Assign access to the shared mailbox access

The agent user must have the Mail.Read.Shared Microsoft Graph permission. This permission allows the agent to read receipts from the configured shared mailbox during flow execution.

To assign access to the shared mailbox access, follow these steps:

1. Go to Microsoft Graph Explorer and sign in by using the created agent user.
2. Select the user icon on the top right corner > select Consent to permissions.
3. Select the drop-down menu for Mail > look for Mail.Read.Shared > select Consent, and select Accept.

Summary of required roles for the Created Agent User

Step 4: Set up the shared mailbox

The Expense Agent uses a shared mailbox to receive and process receipt emails. A user with the Exchange Administrator role needs to create and configure this mailbox in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

To create and configure the shared mailbox, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center by using an Exchange Admin account.

2. In the left pane, select Teams & Groups > Shared mailboxes.

   Tip

   You might need to select Show all to expand the full list.

3. Select Add a shared mailbox.

4. Enter a name and email address for the shared mailbox.

5. Select Save changes.

6. Under Next steps, select Add members to this shared mailbox. (Member management might take a few minutes to become available.)

7. Select Add members

8. Select the created agent user and any others who should monitor the mailbox, and select Add.

9. Select Close.

Step 5: Set up the Expense Agent

To set up the Expense Agent, follow the steps in Use the Agent Deployment tool.

Publish the solution

After you finish configuring all environment variables and flows, follow these steps to publish the solution.

1. In Power Apps, go to Solutions.
2. Select your environment and solution.
3. Select Publish all customizations.

When you complete these steps, the Expense Agent is fully configured and ready to use.

Step 6: Enable the Expense Agent in Microsoft Teams (Optional)

To enable Teams-based communication for the Expense Agent, add the Teams channel to the agent in Power Apps. The agent can then send adaptive cards through Teams.

Enable the Teams channel

To enable the Teams channel, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Copilot Studio and select the correct environment.
2. On the Agents tab, select Expense Entry Agent.
3. In the agent view, on the Channels tab, select Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
4. Select Add channel to enable Teams integration and follow the steps in the Configure Teams app availability section to configure who you want to share the app.

Learn more in Open the configuration panel for the Teams + Microsoft 365 channel.

Configure Teams app availability

To configure Teams app availability, follow these steps:

1. After the Teams app is created, select Availability Options.

2. Select who you want to share the app with:

   • Specific users within the organization
   • The entire organization

3. Submit the app for approval.

Publish the app in the Teams admin center

To publish the app in the Teams admin center, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to the Teams admin center.
2. Go to teams app > Manage apps. Search for "expense" and select Expense Entry Agent app where App status is blocked.
3. Select Publish to unblock the app. Once the publish action completes successfully, ensure that the App status changes to unblocked.

Learn more in Connect and configure an agent for Teams and Microsoft 365.

When you complete these steps, your Expense Agent is ready to use.

Uninstall Expense Agent

To uninstall the Expense Agent, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Microsoft Power Apps maker portal.
2. Select Solutions, search for msdyn_ExpenseAI, select the three dots, and select Delete.
3. Search for msdyn_FnOCopilotAnchor and delete the solution.