The Copilot Trek: Project Bacon
A guided trek across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — powered by Copilot.
The situation
Somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant, a routine supply run just became a full-blown crisis: the fleet's sole certified bacon supplier has been assimilated by the Borg, with a major diplomatic gala only 26 days out. What follows is the real (if slightly ridiculous) paper trail of how the crisis got solved — a meeting transcript, a supply chain spreadsheet, and a report template. You'll create the slide deck yourself.
Your job: work through it the way you would a real business crisis, using Copilot to do the heavy lifting at every step. You'll turn a live meeting into notes, a messy spreadsheet into insight, a blank template into a finished report, and that report into an executive-ready deck — in about 20 minutes, start to finish.
This isn't a scripted demo
This isn't a scripted demo. Every prompt here is one you can actually run, on the actual files, and get a real result. Copy it, paste it, watch what happens. If you want to go off-script and try your own prompt instead, do it — that's the point.
What you'll need: just this page and the three source files in the starting kit below. No login beyond your own Copilot license. Work through all four stations in one sitting, or bookmark this page and come back whenever — nothing here expires.
Four stations, one story
AUG 14 → SEP 9, 2026Your starting kit
Download these three source files to begin. The file you download is already your working copy: open it, edit it directly, and save it under the same name in Downloads. You will be told exactly when you need it again. Downloads require no sign-in; you'll use your own Microsoft 365 Copilot access to complete the activity. Your working files are never uploaded to this site.
Before you begin: Files downloaded for this activity may open in a protected, read-only view the first time. Click Enable Editing before working with them. Tip: note today's date, or sort Downloads by Date Modified, so the files are easy to find later.
Keep this page beside your Microsoft 365 apps. Open the named file from Downloads, open Copilot, then copy and run the station's prompts in order in the same conversation. Wait for each response before continuing. Save changes directly to the downloaded file without renaming or moving it. You need access to Copilot in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; the activity page itself needs no sign-in.
Before you run a prompt
Use Copilot's file or source picker to attach the named files; controls vary by app and rollout. If a source cannot be attached, or Copilot cannot edit your file, resolve that access or capability issue before continuing. Do not assume a filename typed into a prompt attaches the file. Review generated facts and numbers against the sources. This fictional exercise contains no real customer data.
Fictional crisis · everyday skills
Wrap-up
You turned a meeting into a recap, messy data into findings, sources into a report, and a report into a briefing. The real skill wasn't memorizing four prompts. It was learning how to move work forward, one grounded step at a time.
Give context. Use sources. Refine the result. Verify before you share. Name the goal and audience, bring the files that matter, and ask for the structure you need. Then check the facts, numbers, and conclusions against those sources. Copilot can help with the heavy lifting; your judgment makes the work worth using.
Your next mission doesn't need a fleet-wide bacon crisis. Start with one real task: a meeting to recap, a spreadsheet to untangle, or a decision to explain. Use the same pattern, keep what works, and build from there. You don't need a perfect first prompt to make a useful next step.