Channels and Deployment Options

Overview

Publishing an agent makes it available, but it does not put it in front of users. That requires deploying to a channel—the platform where people actually interact with your agent. Copilot Studio supports several channels, from Microsoft Teams to custom websites to programmatic APIs, and each one comes with its own configuration, capabilities, and government cloud considerations.

This video walks through your deployment options, shows you how to configure the most common channels, and highlights what works differently in GCC, GCC High, and DoD environments.

What You’ll Learn

• Channel fundamentals: What channels are and how to choose the right ones for your scenario
• Teams deployment: Step-by-step process for deploying to Microsoft Teams in government clouds
• Website embedding: How to embed your agent in portals and SharePoint pages
• Additional channels: Mobile, Outlook, Direct Line API, and multi-channel management

Script

Hook: Where will users find your agent?

You have published your agent. Now the question is: where do your users actually interact with it?

Copilot Studio supports multiple deployment channels—Teams, websites, mobile, and more. But not every channel works the same way in government clouds, and each one requires its own configuration.

In the next ten minutes, I will walk you through your channel options, show you how to configure the most common ones, and highlight what is different in GCC, GCC High, and DoD.

Understanding channels in Copilot Studio

A channel is a connection between your agent and the platform where users interact with it. Think of your agent as the engine and the channel as the vehicle that delivers it to users.

Each channel has its own authentication model, user interface, and capabilities. Some channels support rich interactive elements like adaptive cards, suggested action buttons, and file uploads. Others are limited to text-based conversations. This matters because the same agent can feel very different depending on the channel.

The planning consideration is straightforward: match your channel choice to how your users already work. If your agency lives in Microsoft Teams, deploy there first. If you are building a self-service portal for citizens or internal users, the website channel makes more sense.

Not all channels available in commercial Copilot Studio are available in government clouds. Always verify channel availability for your specific cloud environment before committing to a deployment plan. This saves you from building a deployment strategy around a channel that is not supported in your tenant.

Deploying to Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is the primary deployment channel for most government agencies, and for good reason—it is where government workers already spend a significant part of their day.

Here is the step-by-step process for deploying your agent to Teams.

Open your agent in Copilot Studio and navigate to the Channels section in the left navigation. Select Microsoft Teams. You will see a configuration screen where you set up your agent’s Teams app details.

Configure the app name, description, and icon. These are what users see when they find your agent in the Teams app catalog, so make them clear and descriptive. Use a name that tells users what the agent does, not just a project code name.

Copilot Studio generates a Teams app manifest based on your configuration. This manifest is the package that Teams uses to install and run your agent. Review the manifest details to confirm everything is accurate.

Now submit the app to your Teams admin for approval. This is a critical step in government environments. Your Teams admin controls which apps are available to users through the Teams admin center. Until the admin approves the app, users cannot find or install it.

Once approved, the agent appears in the Teams app catalog. Users can search for it, install it, and start chatting. You can scope the deployment to the entire organization or limit it to specific user groups—useful for phased rollouts or pilots.

Teams-specific capabilities give your agent a richer experience than many other channels. You can use adaptive cards to display structured information, suggested actions to guide users through conversation flows, and file attachments for document-based scenarios.

In GCC and GCC High, Teams app policies control which apps users can install. Your Teams admin must explicitly allow your agent’s app through the admin center. For DoD environments, additional app review processes may apply depending on your organization’s policies. Coordinate with your Teams admin early in the process—do not wait until the agent is ready to deploy to start that conversation.

Embedding in websites and portals

The custom website channel lets you embed your agent in internal portals, SharePoint pages, or public-facing websites. This is ideal for self-service scenarios where users need help without leaving the page they are already on.

To configure the website channel, go to Channels in Copilot Studio and select Custom website. Copilot Studio provides an embed code—either an iframe or a JavaScript snippet. Copy this code and add it to your target page.

The iframe approach is simpler: paste the iframe HTML into your page and the agent appears in a chat window. The JavaScript approach gives you more control over the appearance and behavior of the chat widget, including custom styling, positioning, and event handling.

You can customize several aspects of the web chat experience: the size and position of the chat window, the welcome message users see when the chat opens, and the color scheme to match your site’s branding.

Authentication is an important consideration for website deployments. You can configure the agent for anonymous access, where anyone visiting the page can interact with it, or require users to sign in. For internal government portals, requiring authentication ensures that the agent respects user identity and can access personalized data.

Security best practice: restrict the domains that can embed your agent. This prevents someone from taking your embed code and hosting your agent on an unauthorized site. Configure the allowed origins list in your agent’s settings.

For government portals, ensure the hosting domain is included in your tenant’s allowed origins. If your agent requires authentication, confirm that the OAuth configuration works with your government cloud’s identity provider. Test this end to end before announcing the deployment—authentication issues are the most common blocker for website channel deployments.

Mobile and additional channel options

Beyond Teams and websites, Copilot Studio offers additional channels worth considering.

Mobile deployment is often simpler than you expect. If you deploy your agent to Microsoft Teams, it is automatically available in the Teams mobile app. Users on iOS and Android can interact with your agent exactly as they would on desktop. No additional configuration is required.

Outlook integration lets you surface your agent as a messaging extension within Outlook. This is useful for scenarios where users need agent assistance while working through email—for example, looking up policy information or checking the status of a request.

SharePoint embedding works similarly to the custom website channel. You can add the agent directly to a SharePoint page, making it available as part of your intranet experience. This is particularly effective for help desk or FAQ-style agents.

For maximum flexibility, the Direct Line API lets you build your agent into any custom application. Direct Line is a REST API from the Bot Framework that enables programmatic communication with your agent. If your agency has a custom mobile app, a desktop application, or a specialized portal, Direct Line lets you connect your agent without depending on a predefined channel.

Direct Line API is available in government clouds and gives you the most flexibility for custom integrations. If your agency has a mobile app or a custom portal, Direct Line lets you connect your agent without depending on a predefined channel.

When evaluating channels, consider three factors: user reach, feature support, and maintenance overhead. Teams reaches the most government users with the least effort. Websites give you branding control. Direct Line gives you full customization but requires development resources.

Managing multi-channel deployments

If you deploy to multiple channels, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Your agent’s logic—topics, entities, actions—is the same across all channels. You build it once and it works everywhere. But the user experience varies. Adaptive cards that look great in Teams may render differently in a web chat. Suggested actions that appear as buttons in Teams might show as text links on a website.

Test each channel individually after publishing. What works perfectly in the Copilot Studio Test pane may behave differently in a real channel. Open your agent in Teams, test it on the website, try it on mobile. Confirm that the experience meets your standards in each one.

Use analytics to monitor engagement per channel. You may find that 80 percent of your users interact through Teams and only a handful use the website. That data helps you prioritize where to invest in improving the experience.

When you republish your agent, all channels receive the update simultaneously. You do not need to redeploy to each channel individually. This makes multi-channel management straightforward—publish once, update everywhere.

A practical tip: start with one channel, validate it thoroughly, gather user feedback, and then expand to additional channels. Trying to launch on every channel at once increases your testing burden and dilutes your initial feedback.

Close: Meet users where they work

Let us recap your options. Microsoft Teams is the primary channel for most government agencies—deploy there first. Custom websites and SharePoint pages give you portal-based access for self-service scenarios. Direct Line API provides maximum flexibility for custom application integrations.

The best agent in the world is useless if people cannot find it. Deploy to the channels where your users already spend their time, validate the experience in each one, and use analytics to understand where engagement happens.

Next up, we will cover agent analytics and monitoring to track how users interact with your agent across every channel you deploy to.

Sources & References

• Publish your agent and configure channels — Overview of all available channels and publishing process
• Connect your agent to Microsoft Teams — Detailed guide for Teams deployment
• Copilot Studio documentation — Main documentation hub for Copilot Studio
• Connect to custom applications — Guide for website embedding and Direct Line API integration