Build a SharePoint Agent for Your Building Reports in 10 Minutes, No Code

Every building has a folder full of inspection reports: roofs, elevators, chillers, fire safety, electrical scans. They hold the answers to the questions owners and managers ask every week. When was the roof last inspected? What's still open? What do we need to budget for next year? The problem is that nobody reads forty pages of PDFs to find out, so the answer is usually "I'll get back to you".

In this guide we put an AI agent on top of that folder. No Copilot Studio, no code, no connectors: a SharePoint agent, created from the folder itself in about ten minutes. It answers in plain English and links every answer to the report it came from.

Here it is answering a real question:

What you'll need

• A Microsoft 365 Copilot licence (or pay-as-you-go billing set up for SharePoint agents).

• A SharePoint folder of reports. Ours holds six sample inspection reports for three properties, the kind our site inspection app produces, plus the monthly variance reports.

• About ten minutes.

Step 1: Create the agent from the folder

Open the folder in SharePoint, select Copilot in the toolbar, then Create an agent. SharePoint fills in a name and uses the folder as the first source.

On the Overview tab we named it Building Condition Assistant and gave it a one-line purpose: answer questions about building condition, inspection findings, open repairs and capital needs at our three properties.

Step 2: Choose the sources

On the Sources tab we kept the Inspection Reports folder and added the Variance Reports folder, so the agent can connect a finding to the money. You can add up to 20 sites, folders, files, pages or lists.

Keep the sources narrow. An agent that only reads inspection and variance reports gives better answers than one that reads the whole site.

Step 3: Tell it how to behave

The Behavior tab is where the agent becomes useful:

Our instructions, in short:

• Answer only from the reports: and always name the report and date used.

• Quote amounts exactly: dollar amounts, dates and priorities as written.

• Say operating or capital: and whether an item is approved or still pending.

• Admit gaps: if the reports don't cover it, say so and suggest who to ask.

• Keep it short: a one-line answer first, then up to five bullets.

We also added three starter prompts that show people what to ask. Then select Create agent. The agent is saved as a file in the folder, so anyone with access to the folder can use it.

Step 4: Ask it something

We asked: "List all high-priority findings across the three sites." It came back with the failed roof flashing at Harbourfront, the chiller compressor and fouled coils at Lakeview, the obsolete elevator controller at Lakeview and the hot spot on the main switchboard at Northgate. Every finding came with the priority, the dollar amount where there was one, whether it was operating or capital, and a link to the report.

Where it slipped

We asked the agent twice which capital items the owner should budget for in 2027. Both times the agent said the chiller compressor would cost $14,000. The report says $14,500. It also left out the $78,000 elevator Phase 2 estimate. In the very next answer, listing high-priority findings, it quoted $14,500 correctly from the same report.

So the agent is very good at finding the right report, and not perfect at copying every number out of it. Two lessons:

• Test with questions you already know the answer to. We wrote the reports, so we caught it. Do the same before you share the agent with an owner.

• Click the source. Every answer links to the report. For anything going into a budget, open the report and check the figure.

A quick game: what would you ask?

Pick the question your owner asked last month that took you the longest to answer. Ours were:

• "When was the last roof inspection, and what did it find?"

• "Is the elevator going to cost us money next year?"

• "Is anything urgent that I don't know about?"

Ask the agent yours. If it can't answer, you haven't found a weak agent, you've found a report that's missing from the folder.

Lessons from the build

• No code, but not no thought. The instructions decide whether the answers are useful. Spend your time there.

• Starter prompts teach people how to use it. Most people won't know what to ask an agent. Show them.

• Sources stay secure. The agent only shows people content they already have permission to see in SharePoint.

• Agents are files. You can move the agent file, share it like any document, or share it into Teams.

Ideas to take it further

• Share it in Teams: add the agent to the property team's channel so questions get answered where people already work.

• Add the leases: put lease abstracts in the sources and ask about renewal dates and repair obligations.

• Add the variance list: connect the Budget Variance list so the agent can answer "why are we over budget?" too.

• Graduate to Copilot Studio: when you need actions, like creating a work order, rebuild it in Copilot Studio, as in our facilities inbox agent.

Why this matters

Building knowledge lives in reports, and reports live in folders nobody opens. Bring your data from different systems into one place and put AI in front of it, and the folder starts answering questions: the property manager gets answers in seconds, and the owner gets them before the meeting instead of after it.

Need help?

Smart Solutions sets up SharePoint, Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI agents for Canadian property and facilities teams. If you'd rather have purchase orders, invoices and vendor documents in one product, take a look at ProcuraCloud, our procurement platform for small and mid-sized businesses. Contact us to talk about putting an agent on your building reports.