Using the Copilot Dashboard for Adoption Metrics

Overview

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Once Copilot is deployed, you need visibility into who’s using it, how much, in which apps, and whether usage is growing or declining. Without this data, adoption management is guesswork—and guesswork leads to surprises that are hard to recover from.

This video walks through the two primary dashboards for Copilot adoption metrics—the Admin Center usage report and the Viva Insights Copilot dashboard—and shows you how to interpret the data and turn it into targeted action.

What You’ll Learn

• Admin Center Report: Where to find it and what it shows
• Viva Insights Dashboard: Deeper behavioral insights beyond raw usage
• Pattern Interpretation: What healthy adoption looks like and warning signs to watch for
• From Data to Action: Using dashboard insights to drive targeted interventions

Script

Hook: you can’t manage what you can’t measure

You’ve deployed Copilot. Licenses are assigned. Training is underway. But how do you know if it’s working?

Without data, you’re relying on anecdotes. “I think people are using it” isn’t a management strategy. You need to know exactly how many users are active, which applications they’re using Copilot in, whether usage is growing or declining, and where the gaps are.

Two dashboards give you this visibility. The Microsoft 365 Admin Center provides usage metrics. Viva Insights provides deeper behavioral analysis. Together, they tell you whether your adoption program is on track and where to focus your attention.

Admin Center Copilot usage report

The Admin Center usage report is your primary adoption dashboard. Find it in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center under Reports, then Usage, then Microsoft 365 Copilot.

This report shows you four key metrics.

Enabled users: how many people have Copilot licenses assigned. This is your denominator—the total population that could be using Copilot.

Active users: how many enabled users actually used Copilot in the selected time period. This is your primary adoption metric. The ratio of active to enabled users—your adoption rate—is the single most important number in your dashboard.

Usage by application: which M365 apps are people using Copilot in. Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint—each shows separately. This tells you where Copilot is gaining traction and where it isn’t.

Trend over time: how these metrics change day over day, week over week, month over month. Trends matter more than snapshots. A 50 percent adoption rate that’s growing is healthier than a 70 percent rate that’s declining.

Use the time range filters to compare periods. Look at the last 7 days, 30 days, and 90 days. Short-term views show recent changes. Longer views show sustained patterns. When you see a dip in the 7-day view, check whether it’s a blip or the start of a trend.

Understanding the active vs. enabled ratio is critical. In the first 30 days, 40 to 50 percent is reasonable. By 90 days, you should be targeting 60 to 70 percent. If you’re significantly below these benchmarks, it’s time to investigate why. Is it a training issue? An awareness issue? A relevance issue? The dashboard tells you there’s a problem—your investigation tells you what kind.

In government cloud environments, verify that reporting is working correctly in your specific environment. GCC, GCC High, and DoD may have different report availability or data refresh cadences. Test your reporting access early so you have data when you need it.

Viva Insights Copilot dashboard

The Viva Insights Copilot dashboard goes deeper than raw usage counts. While the Admin Center tells you who’s using Copilot, Viva Insights tells you how it’s affecting their work.

This dashboard shows Copilot’s impact on meeting hours—are users who adopted Copilot spending less time in meetings thanks to meeting summaries and more efficient follow-up? It tracks email patterns—are Copilot users processing email faster? It measures document creation activity—are users generating more content in less time?

The Viva Insights dashboard also captures sentiment data. Through surveys integrated into the work experience, it measures how users feel about Copilot’s usefulness and impact on their work. This qualitative layer complements the quantitative usage data from the Admin Center.

Important caveat: the Viva Insights Copilot dashboard requires a Viva Insights license, which may need separate procurement in government environments. Check availability and licensing requirements for your cloud environment before planning to use this dashboard. If Viva Insights isn’t available, you’ll rely on the Admin Center report supplemented by manual surveys.

When Viva Insights is available, the combination is powerful. The Admin Center tells you adoption is at 65 percent. Viva Insights tells you those adopters are saving an average of 3 hours per week on meeting-related tasks. Together, that’s a compelling story for stakeholders.

Interpreting patterns and identifying issues

Learn to read the patterns, not just the numbers.

Healthy adoption patterns show steady growth in active users over the first 90 days, with usage spreading across multiple M365 applications. If users start with Copilot in Teams and then begin using it in Outlook and Word, that’s a sign that adoption is deepening—they’re finding value in multiple contexts.

Warning signs to watch for. Declining usage after an initial spike suggests the novelty wore off without sustained value. If usage peaked in week two and has been falling since, you need to intervene with refreshed training or targeted engagement. Single-app concentration—where 90 percent of Copilot usage is in Teams but almost nobody uses it in Outlook or Word—suggests that users found one use case but haven’t discovered others. Targeted training on underutilized apps can address this.

Team-level gaps are particularly important. If your Finance department shows 75 percent adoption but your Operations department shows 20 percent, something is different about their experience. Investigate: did Operations receive the same training? Do they have a champion? Is Copilot relevant to their workflows? Segmenting by department, role, or location identifies where targeted action is needed.

Correlate dips with events. A usage drop after a holiday week is normal. A drop after a system update might indicate a technical issue. A gradual decline over three weeks might indicate fading engagement. Understanding the cause determines the response.

Close: from dashboard to action

Dashboards are only useful if they drive action.

During initial rollout—the first 90 days—review your dashboard weekly. Look for the adoption rate trend, app-level usage distribution, and any sharp changes that need investigation. Weekly review lets you catch issues early while they’re still small.

After the initial rollout, shift to monthly dashboard reviews for ongoing monitoring. Create a monthly stakeholder report that summarizes key metrics, highlights successes, flags concerns, and recommends actions. This report keeps leadership informed and maintains organizational attention on adoption.

The most important practice: turn data into targeted interventions. When the dashboard shows a team with low adoption, don’t send a generic reminder email. Investigate why, then deploy the specific support they need—additional training, a champion visit, a use case workshop, or a technical fix.

Dashboards don’t drive adoption. Actions drive adoption. Dashboards tell you where to focus those actions.

Sources & References

• Microsoft 365 Copilot usage reports — Admin Center usage reporting
• Viva Insights Copilot dashboard — Behavioral impact analysis
• Microsoft Copilot adoption resources — Adoption measurement guidance