Summarize Campaign and Sales Data With Copilot in Excel

What This Does

Reviewing category and competitive sales trends means building roughly the same charts and pivot views period after period, just with new numbers underneath. Copilot in Excel reads your data, flags what moved, and builds the standard chart set you already use for the weekly business review, so the two hours you spend on this task each week goes more toward deciding what to do about the numbers than toward formatting them.

Before You Start

• A Microsoft 365 account with Copilot access (confirm with IT if you are not sure your plan includes it)
• Sales or campaign data exported into Excel, organized with clear column headers (SKU, channel, period, units, dollars, and so on)
• You are logged into Excel, desktop or web, with that account

Steps

1. Open your data and find Copilot

Open the workbook with this period's sales or campaign export. As of the 2026 rollout, Copilot in Excel usually appears as a floating icon in the lower-right corner of the sheet, sometimes called the Dynamic Action Button. Press F6 or Alt+C to jump to it from the keyboard. If your organization moved it back onto the ribbon (Microsoft added that option in mid-2026), look for the Copilot button on the Home tab instead.

2. Ask for the summary and the movers

Click the Copilot icon to open the panel, then describe what you need in plain language: "Summarize this sales data by SKU and channel, and flag anything that moved more than 10% versus last period." Copilot reads the sheet and returns a written summary plus, if you ask, new columns or a summary table highlighting the changes.

3. Build the standard charts and check the numbers

Follow up with a request for the charts you normally include, for example: "Build the two charts I usually include in the weekly review: total sales by channel, and share of sales by SKU." Copilot generates the charts directly in the workbook. Before anything moves into a report, spot-check the underlying numbers against your source export, especially any figure Copilot generated through a formula rather than a direct read of your data.

Real Example

Scenario: Monday morning, and you need this week's numbers ready for a 10am business review.

What you type: "Summarize this sales data by SKU and channel, flag anything that moved more than 10% versus last period, and build the two charts I usually include in the weekly review."

What you get: A short written summary calling out the two or three SKUs with the biggest swings, plus the two charts already formatted and ready to copy into your deck. You spend the saved time figuring out why the swings happened, not building the chart.

Tips

• Give Copilot the exact threshold or comparison you care about ("more than 10% versus last period") rather than a vague ask like "show me what's interesting." Specific prompts return more usable answers
• If a formula or number looks off, ask Copilot to show its work ("what formula did you use for that column?") rather than guessing at the error yourself
• Keep your data in the same column layout from period to period so you can reuse the same prompt each week instead of rewriting it

Sales and share figures that came out of Copilot's summary are a starting point, not a final answer. Cross-check any number that will appear in a report or reach a sales or finance partner against the original data pull before it leaves your hands. If the underlying export is contract-licensed Nielsen or Circana data, keep it inside your company's Microsoft 365 tenant rather than a personal Copilot account, since the syndicated data license generally restricts where that data can live and who can access it.

Tool interfaces change. If the Copilot icon is not where this guide describes, check the ribbon's Home tab, or ask your IT admin where your organization has placed it.