ChatGPT Copilots Using Azure OpenAI & Semantic Kernel — Lesson 3: Grounding, Retrieval, and Integration

Learning Objectives

• Prepare documents, embeddings, vector search, retrieval, and citation patterns
• Connect enterprise APIs, data, workflows, and approved tools
• Apply access filtering, secrets, privacy, and data-boundary controls

Detailed Topics

• Prepare documents: Prepare documents, embeddings, vector search, retrieval, and citation patterns
• Connect enterprise APIs: Connect enterprise APIs, data, workflows, and approved tools
• Apply access filtering: Apply access filtering, secrets, privacy, and data-boundary controls

Guided Demonstration

1. Review the requirement, users, data, dependencies, permissions, risks, and expected result.
2. Demonstrate the relevant configuration, development, administration, analysis, or collaboration workflow step by step.
3. Capture settings, outputs, logs, screenshots, calculations, test results, and other useful evidence.
4. Compare the observed result with acceptance criteria and explain any corrective action.

Hands-On Activity

Create a grounded copilot with an enterprise data source.

• Document assumptions, prerequisites, and the planned sequence before starting.
• Complete the activity and preserve evidence of normal, boundary, and failure behavior.
• Record issues, corrective actions, reusable notes, and the next improvement priority.

Scenario Analysis

• Identify the business or technical decision that must be made.
• Compare valid implementation approaches and their trade-offs.
• Consider security, privacy, accessibility, performance, support, and operational impact.

Troubleshooting Focus

• Separate symptoms from causes and collect evidence before applying a fix.
• Check configuration, data, permissions, dependencies, capacity, connectivity, and recent changes.
• Validate rollback, recovery, ownership, user impact, and business continuity.

Validation Checklist

• The requirement, scope, inputs, and expected outcome are clear.
• The selected design or configuration is documented and follows approved standards.
• Normal, boundary, failure, security, accessibility, and operational conditions are reviewed.
• The result is supported by evidence and the next improvement is prioritized.

Lesson Outcome

Learners can explain and apply Grounding, Retrieval, and Integration in a realistic scenario and validate the result with documented evidence.