Set up Sales Order Agent

The Sales Order Agent in Business Central automates processing sales orders from customer email requests. This article explains how to activate and configure the agent.

Learn more about the agent in Sales Order Agent overview.

Prerequisites

Before configuring and activating Sales Order Agent, ensure the following prerequisites are met:

You have the required permissions:
- To create a Sales Order Agent instance, you need the Configure All Agents system permission (ID 9665).
- To manage an existing agent, you need the Configure All Agents system permission or be listed in the agent's user access list with Can Configure selected.
Learn more about permissions and access.
An email account is set up for receiving incoming requests for sales quotes and orders.

Sales Order Agent monitors incoming emails to this mailbox. The email account must be a Microsoft 365 type (user mailbox or shared mailbox) in your organization. Learn more at Set up email.

Important

To activate and configure the agent, you need Read and manage (Full Access) and Send as permission on the mailbox, unless it's your personal mailbox. As an Exchange admin, delegate these permissions to all users who need to activate and configure the agent. Learn more in Use the Exchange admin center to edit shared mailbox delegation.

When a user activates the agent, it runs as a background task in the context of that user and needs access to the shared mailbox to process emails. It might take a few hours for Exchange to propagate the permissions to the selected users.
Billing for agent capabilities is configured for the Business Central environment in the Business Central admin center.

Agents use Copilot Credits when a user runs it, which your company is charged for. Learn more in Manage consumption-based billing.
(Sandbox environments only) The Allow HttpClient Requests toggle in the Sales Order Agent extension settings is turned on.

Open the Extension management page, select Sales Order Agent, and then turn on the Allow HttpClient Requests toggle.

Tip

Before you activate the agent, review your contact list to make sure that the customer contacts have accurate email addresses in the E-Mail field. The agent relies on email matching to identify customers. Contacts without email addresses, or with outdated addresses, require manual intervention for each incoming request. Learn more in Identifying customers/contacts.

Turn on Sales Order Agent capability for environment

The agent capability is on if the Sales Order Agent icon appears in the top navigation menu of the role center.

Shows the Sales Order Agent icon on a role center

If the icon isn't present, turn it on from the Copilot & agent capabilities page, like other Copilot features in Business Central. Sales Order Agent is listed under Generally available. Learn more in Configure Copilot and AI agent capabilities.

Next, configure, and then activate the agent so it can process customer sales orders.

Configure and activate Sales Order Agent

Configure and activate Sales Order Agent for your company. You can set up multiple Sales Order Agent instances per company, each with its own mailbox, folder, email signature, and processing rules. Each instance tracks its own performance metrics independently.

In the navigation bar at the upper right of the role center, select Sales Order Agent > Activate.
On the Configure the Copilot agent page, turn on the Active toggle.
Select Language and region to specify the default language, region, and time zone the agent uses for:
- Outgoing emails to customers or contacts. If a customer or contact card has a language specified, the agent uses that language instead of the default.
- Messages about tasks to users in the Tasks pane.
When you first configure the agent, it uses the same settings as your workspace (under Settings > My Settings). You can change the language later from the Sales Order Agent card page. Learn more about these settings in Change language, region, and other settings.
Select Manage user access to specify the users who can work with the agent and whether they can also configure it. You can add more users now or later. Learn more in Add users to the agent.
If you want to change the agent's display name in the task pane and icon initials, set the Display name and Initials fields. These fields can't be blank.
Configure email monitoring:
- Turn on the Monitor and process emails toggle.
- Set the Mailbox field to the email account you want the agent to monitor for incoming sales quote and order requests.
- If the mailbox has a subfolder you want to monitor, set the Folder field to the subfolder.

On the right side of the page, select the Go to next card arrow to configure more options that determine how the agent behaves.

The options are spread across multiple cards. Use the Go to next card and Go to previous card arrows to go back and forth between the cards and set the various options. Each tab that follows describes a group of related options:

These options specify how the agent engages in conversations related to price and availability of products and services.

Option	Description	Default
Messages from already registered senders	Specifies the type of review required for incoming messages from already registered senders.	First message in a conversation
Messages from unregistered senders	Specifies the type of review required for incoming messages from unregistered senders.	All
Select only available items	Specifies whether the agent considers item availability when searching for the customer's requested items. When on, the agent checks inventory to determine whether the customer's requested item quantity is available based on their requested delivery date and location code. If there aren't enough items, the agent prepares the reply to the user that the requested items aren't available, even in situations when fewer items are available. When off, the agent includes the customer's requested item quantity regardless of availability. That is, quotes can be created for the items that aren't available and their availability can become negative. Learn more about item availability in Get an availability overview or open the Item Availability page.	On
Include capable to promise	Specifies whether the agent includes in the search results items that are currently unavailable but can be ordered for a later shipment date. Learn more in Calculating delivery dates using capable-to-promise.	Off

These options specify how you interact with the agent to create sales quotes and make orders from quotes in response to the incoming requests.

The agent always creates a sales quote as the first step. Sales quotes have no impact on planning, reservations, availability, or cash flow, which makes them a safe intermediate document for AI-assisted processing. Depending on your configuration, the quote can be sent to the customer for review, converted directly into a sales order, or both. The following table shows how the main settings interact:

Send quotes for confirmation	Make orders from quotes	What happens
On	On	The agent sends the quote to the customer for review. After the customer confirms the quote, the agent converts it into a sales order. This is the default behavior.
On	Off	The agent sends the quote to the customer for review. The quote stays as a quote, and you must convert it to an order manually.
Off	On	The agent creates the quote internally and immediately converts it to a sales order. The customer only receives the order, never the quote.
Off	Off	The agent creates the quote but doesn't send it to the customer and doesn't convert it into an order automatically. You handle any customer communication and order creation manually.

Option	Description	Default
Review quotes when created and updated	When on, the agent adds a review step for a Business Central user to review and confirm the sales quote before creating an outgoing email with the quote details and attachment. When off, the agent creates or modifies sales quotes as requested and then automatically proceeds with creating an outgoing email with the quote as an attachment. The user must review and confirm the email before the agent sends it to the customer.	Off
Send quotes for confirmation	When on, the agent sends the sales quote to the customer as a PDF attachment and waits for the customer to confirm or request changes before proceeding. When off and Make orders from quotes is on, the agent skips the quote stage from the customer's perspective and converts the quote to a sales order immediately. The customer only receives the order.	On
Make orders from quotes	When on, the agent converts sales quotes into orders. If Send quotes for confirmation is also on, conversion happens after the customer agrees to the quote via email and a Business Central user confirms the email. If Send quotes for confirmation is off, the agent converts the quote to an order immediately without sending the quote to the customer. When off, you have to create the order manually.	On
Review orders when created and updated	When on, the agent adds a review step for a Business Central user to review and confirm the sales order before creating an outgoing email with the order details and attachment. When off, the agent creates the sales order as requested and then automatically proceeds with creating an outgoing email with the order as an attachment. The user must review and confirm the order before the agent sends it to the customer.	Off

Use these options to configure the email mailbox the agent monitors for incoming emails and how it handles emails.

Option	Description	Default
Account	This option is the same as the Mailbox field on the first configuration page. It specifies the email account the agent monitors. The email account must be a Microsoft 365 type (user mailbox or shared mailbox) in your organization. Learn more at Set up email.	None
Folder	Specifies the mailbox folder that the agent monitors. You must select a folder before you activate the agent. You need Read and manage (Full Access) permission on the mailbox to set this option. Learn more in Use the Exchange admin center to edit shared mailbox delegation	None (required)
Mark email as read	Specifies whether the agent marks processed emails as read in the mailbox. When enabled, team members can quickly identify the messages the agent handled.	On
Analyze attachments	Specifies whether the agent analyzes attachments on incoming emails for request information. The agent supports PDF, PNG, and JPG files. PDF attachments can be up to 50 pages. A cumulative content limit of approximately 150,000 characters applies across all attachments in a single email. When the agent skips an attachment, the reason is shown on the Attachments page. For example, the agent might skip an attachment because it exceeds the page count limit, cumulative content length, or attachment count. Or, it doesn't support the attachment's format.	Enabled
Daily email limit	Specifies how many incoming emails per day the agent can handle. The agent issues an alert when the limit is reached. The emails received after the daily limit is exceeded are automatically processed on the next day.	100

Select Update to complete the setup.

The Sales Order Agent icon changes to , indicating the agent is active and ready to handle incoming quote requests to the mailbox.

When Sales Order Agent is active, a scheduled task periodically monitors the configured mailbox folder. When it finds a new message that it hasn't processed, Sales Order Agent imports the message into Business Central and verifies whether there's already a task for the mail thread. If a task for the thread already exists, Sales Order Agent incorporates the new message into the existing task. Otherwise, it creates a new task for the message.

Note

The icon indicates the agent is configured with the mailbox, but it's not active. To activate, select the icon, then select Configure Sales Order Agent to reopen the configuration page. From there, turn on the Active toggle.

Try it out: Create tasks without sending email

You can test the Sales Order Agent without sending an actual email. The agent's setup page includes a Try it out section where you create a task by picking a sender, composing a message, and optionally attaching files. The agent processes the task exactly as if it received a real email.

On the Configure Sales Order Agent page, select Create task in the Try it out section.
On the Create Task page, set the Sender field to a contact or customer from your list, or type in an email address directly.
Compose the message text in the message body field.
Optionally, attach files using the Attachments subpage.
Select Create to submit the task to the agent.

To get started quickly, select the Use sample message link, which fills the page with one of two sample messages:

A text-only message that references items from your item catalog.
A message with a sample purchase order attachment generated as a PDF using your actual item data.

If the agent isn't enabled yet, you're prompted to enable it automatically when creating a task. This flow doesn't use email monitoring, so the agent only processes your test task.

Note

The sample messages use real data from your environment. If you select a sender, the agent picks the top items by shipment frequency for that customer. Otherwise, it selects items with positive projected availability. Quantities are randomized between 1 and 10, capped at the available balance. The sample purchase order attachment is rendered from a Word template using your company information and the selected items, so you can use this feature on almost any environment with inventory data.

Test with real customer emails

You can forward, copy, or move a customer email that was originally delivered to another mailbox into the folder that the agent monitors. The method you choose affects how the agent identifies the sender:

Forward the message: The agent uses your email address as the sender, rather than the original customer's address. If your address isn't registered on a contact, the agent applies the configured review setting for messages from unregistered senders. During an incoming-message review, you can create a contact, select another contact for this message only, or associate your address with another contact for future messages.
Copy or move the message: Depending on the Outlook client and the method you use, copying or moving the original message can preserve the customer's address as the sender. Verify that the message in the monitored folder still shows the customer's email address in the From field.

The agent retrieves messages based on their received date and time in Microsoft 365, not when they were copied or moved into the monitored folder. It processes messages from the agent's activation date. Therefore, copying or moving a message received before that date might not make it eligible for processing. Forwarding creates a new message with a new received date and time.

After the message reaches the monitored folder, wait for the agent's next scheduled run. You don't need to mark the message as unread.

Configuration scenarios

The following scenarios illustrate how you can combine multiple agent instances, folders, and processing rules to match different business needs.

Control which senders the agent processes

The agent processes all emails that arrive in the monitored folder. To limit processing to approved senders, create a dedicated subfolder (for example, Sales Requests) in the monitored mailbox and point the agent to that folder. Then set up Outlook rules that automatically move emails from approved senders into this folder. Emails from unknown or unapproved senders stay in the inbox and the agent never sees them. This approach gives you a sender allow-list without any changes in Business Central.

Use multiple agent instances for different customer groups

You can create multiple Sales Order Agent instances in the same company, each monitoring a different mailbox or folder and using different processing rules. For example:

Instance 1: Shared team inbox. Monitors a shared mailbox (sales@contoso.com) with all review steps enabled and quotes sent for customer confirmation.
Instance 2: Personal inbox for trusted customers. Monitors a subfolder on a salesperson's personal mailbox. The Send quotes for confirmation toggle is turned off so the agent converts quotes directly into orders. The salesperson's individual email signature is used.

Each instance has its own display name and initials, so users can distinguish agent tasks in the Tasks pane.

Delegate only part of the process to the agent

If your pricing or discount logic requires manual steps that the agent can't perform, configure the agent to stop after creating the quote:

Turn on Review quotes when created and updated.
Turn off Send quotes for confirmation.

With this configuration, the agent reads the email, identifies items, checks availability, and creates the sales quote. It then pauses and asks a Business Central user to review the quote. The user can apply custom pricing, add discounts, or populate fields that the agent doesn't handle. After the user finishes, they can send the quote manually or resume the agent workflow.

Manage agent when Copilot Credits run out

Sales Order Agent requires Copilot Credits to process incoming emails. When your organization's Copilot Credit quota is depleted, the agent stops retrieving and processing new emails from the monitored mailbox. However, the agent remains active and continues to run its scheduled task and sends any pending reply emails that were already prepared.

When credits become available again (for example, at the start of a new billing period or when you purchase more capacity), the agent automatically resumes processing. It picks up unprocessed emails that accumulated in the mailbox while credits were unavailable. Depending on the volume of emails, this restart can quickly consume a large portion of your renewed credits.

Best practices for managing credits

Deactivate the agent if you don't want automatic resumption. If you're trying out the agent or running on limited free credits, turn off the agent before credits run out. Turning off the agent prevents it from automatically processing a backlog of emails when credits renew. To turn off the agent, select Sales Order Agent > Configure Sales Order Agent, and then turn off the Active toggle.
Use the daily email limit to control consumption. Set the Daily email limit on the Manage mailbox configuration card to cap how many emails the agent processes per day. This setting helps prevent the agent from consuming all credits in a short time, especially after a period of inactivity.
Monitor your credit usage. Check your Copilot Credit capacity and usage in the Power Platform admin center and stay ahead of quota limits. Learn more in Manage consumption-based billing.
Manage unprocessed emails before you reactivate the agent. Consider clearing or archiving old emails from the monitored mailbox that no longer need a response so that the agent doesn't process stale requests.

Note

When you reactivate the agent after deactivating it, the agent processes emails from the mailbox starting from when it was deactivated. If you don't want the agent to process older emails, clear them from the monitored folder before reactivating.

Manage users and agent settings

After setup, you can control who works with each agent instance and who can change its configuration. You can also change the agent's language and region settings and manage the permission sets assigned to its account.

Understand permissions and access

To work with or configure an agent, a user needs the relevant system permission and access to the specific agent:

To create a Sales Order Agent instance, a user needs the Configure All Agents system permission (ID 9665).
To configure an existing agent, a user needs the Configure All Agents permission or must be listed in that agent's user access list with Can Configure selected.
To work with an agent's tasks in the Copilot pane, a user needs the Manage Agent Tasks system permission (ID 9670) and must be listed in that agent's user access list.

The following permission sets and license entitlements provide access to agent functionality:

The AGENT - ADMIN permission set grants the Configure All Agents permission. Assign this permission set to a user who needs to create agent instances or configure any agent in the environment. The broader SECURITY and SUPER permission sets also grant this permission. To follow the principle of least privilege, use AGENT - ADMIN unless the user needs broader administrative access.
The D365 Agent permission set grants the Manage Agent Tasks permission and access to the virtual tables used by agents. The D365 Basic permission set includes D365 Agent.
Essential and Premium license entitlements include the Manage Agent Tasks permission.
All current Business Central license entitlements include the Configure All Agents permission. A license makes the permission available, but users still need an assigned permission set that grants it.

Add users to the agent

A user who can configure an agent can add other users to its access list. For each user, you can allow them to work with the agent's tasks only, or select Can Configure to also let them change the agent's configuration and manage its access list.

There are two ways to add users to an agent:

From Configure Sales Order Agent
From the Sales Order Agent card page

Open the Configure Sales Order Agent page by selecting Sales Order Agent > Configure.
Turn off the Active toggle.
Select Manage user access.
On the Select users that can manage or interact with the Agent page, complete the following steps:
- To add a user, select an empty line, select the User Name field, then select the user from the list.
- To give a user permission to configure Sales Order Agent, select the Can Configure checkbox.
  
  The Can Configure setting defines whether a user has access to update the agent configuration (for example, updating the designated mailbox, activating and deactivating the agent, and other settings) or only to work with the agent tasks (for example, reviewing and confirming agent steps).
- To remove a user's access to the agent, select Show more options next to the user name, and then select Delete.

Change agent language, region, and other settings

The agent is validated and supported in the following languages: Danish, English, English (Canada), English (New Zealand), English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), English (United States), French, French (Canada), German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish. While it can be used in other languages, it might not function as intended. Language quality might vary based on the user's interaction or system settings, which might impact accuracy and the user experience. Learn more about geographic and language availability at Copilot international availability.

To open the Sales Order Agent card page, search (Alt+Q) for Agents, and then select the Sales Order Agent account you want to manage.

Select Agent User Settings and set the following fields:

Field	Description
Profile	Specifies the role that defines the agent's home page and the UI elements available to the agent.
Region	Specifies the regional format used by the agent for dates, times, and numbers in outgoing emails and task details.
Language	Specifies the language the agent uses for generated text in: Outgoing email messages to customers or contacts. If a customer or contact card has a language specified, the agent uses that language instead of the default. Task details and descriptions in the agent Tasks pane and log.
Time zone	Specifies the time zone used by the agent when displaying and processing date and time in tasks details.

Manage permission sets for the agent account

The Sales Order Agent has a user account in Business Central, similar to other users, which defines the permissions the agent has on objects and data. To access this account, search for and open the Agents page, and then select the Sales Order Agent account you want to manage. The first account created for a company is named SALES ORDER AGENT - [COMPANY]. Additional accounts are named SALES ORDER AGENT - [COMPANY] 2, SALES ORDER AGENT - [COMPANY] 3, and so on.

The Agent Permission Sets section lists the permission sets currently assigned to the agent. By default, the Sales Order Agent account has the SOA - EDIT permission set. This set grants access only to the objects and data necessary for handling sales quote requests. To add or remove permission sets, select Edit agent permissions.

You can't modify the SOA - EDIT permission set directly, because it's a system permission set. However, you can create a copy of the SOA - EDIT permission set, modify the copy to suit your needs, and then assign it to the agent, along with any other permission sets.

Before you can add or delete permission sets applied to the agent, change the State to disabled. When you're done making changes, set it back to Enabled.

Resolve "The agent needs additional permissions to continue"

Sales Order Agent runs under its own user account and doesn't inherit permissions from the person reviewing the task. Installed extensions can add logic or UI elements to standard pages that the agent uses, so the agent account might need permission sets provided by those extensions.

If a task displays The agent needs additional permissions to continue:

Expand the error details and note the extension name, object type, object ID, and required access.
Search for and open the Permissions Overview page.
Filter by the extension named in the error. When available, also filter by Object Type and Object ID to find permission sets that grant the required access.
Review the matching permission sets and note the narrowest permission sets that provide the required access.
Search for and open the Agents page, and then select the Sales Order Agent account.
Change State to Disabled.
Select Edit agent permissions. In the Permission Set field, select the narrowest permission set that you identified and that is available in the lookup.
Select OK to save the assignment and return to the Sales Order Agent card.
Select Configure. On the Configure Sales Order Agent page, turn on the Active toggle, and then select Update.
Retry the task.

If none of the permission sets you identified are available in the Permission Set lookup, contact the extension publisher. The publisher might need to recommend an existing assignable permission set or provide one that supports agent scenarios.

Learn more in Get an overview of all permissions.

Diagnose agent tasks and steps

Administrators can use the Agents page to inspect Sales Order Agent tasks, completed steps, messages, and detailed log entries. This information can help you identify where a task stopped and what information the agent used.

Search for and open the Agents page.
Select the Sales Order Agent account you want to inspect, and then choose View tasks.
On the Agent Tasks page, use one of the following options:
- Select a linked Task ID to open an active task.
- Drill into Steps Done to inspect the execution steps.
- Choose View log entries to open the Agent Task Log page. Select an entry, and then choose View details.

You don't need the Agent - Diagnostics permission set to view tasks and ordinary log details. Assign it to administrators who need to view the serialized page snapshot under What the agent saw in the log entry details.

For information about reviewing task timelines and assisting an agent, see Supervise agent activities.

Next steps

Process sales quotes and orders with Sales Order Agent
(Optional) Configure text search language to optimize item lookups in multilingual environments

Sales Order Agent overview
FAQ for Sales Order Agent
Configure Copilot and agent capabilities

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Last updated on 2026-09-02

Set up Sales Order Agent

Prerequisites

Turn on Sales Order Agent capability for environment

Configure and activate Sales Order Agent

Try it out: Create tasks without sending email

Test with real customer emails

Configuration scenarios

Control which senders the agent processes

Use multiple agent instances for different customer groups

Delegate only part of the process to the agent

Manage agent when Copilot Credits run out

Best practices for managing credits

Manage users and agent settings

Understand permissions and access

Add users to the agent

Change agent language, region, and other settings

Manage permission sets for the agent account

Resolve "The agent needs additional permissions to continue"

Diagnose agent tasks and steps

Next steps

Related information

Feedback

Additional resources