Project Administration · Agent blueprint · validated with 7 team members

PM Question Reply Drafter

Reads each project manager's budget, invoice or subcontractor question in Outlook, pulls the current figures from Deltek Vantagepoint through its API, and drafts a reply. A coordinator approves each reply before it is sent, because policy bars unattended messages.

86readiness · Ready for an agent

6–10 hback per week, of 16 h now

$14K–25Ka year

3–5 wkto build · size M

Trigger

A project manager's email about budget, invoices or a subcontractor arrives in the coordinators' shared Outlook mailbox.

Done when: The project manager has the answer they asked for.

Needs: PM's email (sender, subject, body); Project identifier or name from the email; Vantagepoint Project Review data: remaining budget, invoice status, outstanding amounts; Vantagepoint posting date (to state 'as of last night'); Project-to-group ownership (to spot another group's project)

What the agent does

1
Detect new PM email in the coordinators' mailbox · Outlookconnector
Power Automate trigger on new mail in the shared mailbox.
2
Classify the question and extract project and what was asked · Copilot Studioai
Types: budget/hours remaining, invoice status, subcontractor, project setup/change, forecast, other. Extract the project number or name.
3
Route out-of-scope questions to a coordinator with a note · Outlookperson
Setup/changes, forecasts, other groups' projects, 'other' or unclear project: skip drafting, flag with the reason.
4
Look up the project's budget and invoice figures · Deltek Vantagepointapi
Read the same Project Review data coordinators open today; read-only access.
5
Draft reply with requested figures, outstanding items and as-of note · Copilot Studioai
States figures are as of last night's posting. Includes only what the PM asked, plus what is outstanding.
6
Coordinator reviews, edits if needed and approves the draft · Outlookperson
Draft appears in the coordinator's Drafts folder or an approval card, alongside the figures used.
7
Send approved reply to the PM · Outlookconnector
Sent only after approval.
8
Log question type, project, outcome and edits · Excelconnector
Used for the post-launch measures and tuning.

Decisions the agent makes

Decide	Rule	Source
Which figures to include in the reply	Include the numbers the PM asked for (such as remaining budget and invoice status) from Vantagepoint, plus what is still outstanding.	The team
Which data vintage to quote	Answer from the Vantagepoint figures as of last night's posting, and say so in the reply.	The team
Whether the question follows the usual handling	Team says questions about another group's project, or forecast requests, do not fit the usual way. What to do instead is not described and the answers are unclear. Until answered, the agent hands these to a coordinator.	The team
Whether a reply may be sent without review	No. Policy requires a person to approve every outgoing reply.	Observed choices
How to answer subcontractor questions	Not known yet: ask the team	Not known yet
How to handle project setup/change and 'other' questions	Not known yet: ask the team	Not known yet

Where a person signs off

A coordinator approves or edits every reply before it is sent (policy: no unattended actions).

Exceptions

When	What the agent does
The question is about another group's project (under 1 in 10 cases for most respondents)	Do not draft. Hand to a coordinator with the project and the question. The team did not say whether to redirect, answer or ask permission.
The PM asks for a forecast, not just actuals (mentioned by one respondent)	Do not draft from Vantagepoint actuals. Hand to a coordinator with the question. The forecast source is unknown.
Project setup or change requests, and 'other' questions (reported as about a third each in the team's answers)	Flag for a coordinator. These may follow a different process, which is not yet described.
Project cannot be identified or matches several projects (not measured)	Hand to a coordinator with the candidate matches, or draft a clarifying question for approval.
Subcontractor question (mentioned as a trigger; what is looked up is not described)	Hand to a coordinator until the lookup is defined.
Coordinator edits the draft (about 4% of cases re-edit the message body today)	Send the edited version and log the edit for tuning.

Build with

Copilot Studio: Classifies the question, extracts the project and drafts the reply.
Power Automate: Mailbox trigger, Vantagepoint API call, approval flow, send and logging.
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Optional: coordinators refine drafts in Outlook.
Outlook connector: Reads incoming mail, creates drafts and sends approved replies.
Excel connector: Holds the log of cases for measurement.

Skills: Copilot Studio, Power Automate, REST API integration (Deltek Vantagepoint), Prompt design and testing

Before building

Read-only service account and API access to Deltek Vantagepoint Project Review data
Access to the shared mailbox for the Outlook connector
Copilot Studio and Power Automate licenses, plus a data policy allowing Vantagepoint data in the flow
A mapping of projects to owning groups to detect other groups' projects
A set of 30-50 past PM questions and replies for testing
Where the Vantagepoint posting date can be read, for the as-of statement

Risks

Wrong project matched, leading to figures for the wrong project in a reply
Coordinators approve without checking, so errors reach PMs
Question mix differs from the budget/invoice focus: a third are setup or 'other', so fewer cases are automatable than the 136 per week suggest
Forecast requests answered with actuals, which misleads the PM
Information about another group's project is disclosed without permission

How we'll know it worked

Median coordinator minutes per case (baseline 6.4 min)
Team hours per week on this task (baseline 16.2 h)
Share of cases drafted by the agent and sent with no or light edits (new)
Share of cases handed to a coordinator as out of scope (new)

Still to answer before building

How are questions about another group's project handled: redirect, answer, or ask permission?
How are forecast requests answered, and from what source, since Vantagepoint figures are actuals?
What are the 'other' and 'project setup or changes' questions, and do they follow a different process?
Why is retyping from Vantagepoint into Outlook needed (82% of cases), and what errors or delays does it cause?
Where are the rules, such as the as-of-last-night statement, written down, if anywhere?
What is looked up for subcontractor questions?
Is there a reply template or preferred wording, since none was described?
Should the agent attach or link anything, such as a Vantagepoint report or Excel backup?

Where the team disagrees

Settle these first: an agent needs one rule, and new hires get mixed answers today.

The most common question types are spread out: project setup or changes and 'other' (a third each), then budget/hours remaining and billing/invoice status (about one in six each). This differs from the email trigger, where everyone described budget, invoice or subcontractor questions.

Evidence

82% of cases follow the same steps (some skip a step)
16 team hours a week
data is moved by hand from Deltek Vantagepoint to Microsoft Outlook (82% retyped)
4% of cases redo steps

Observed main path (71% of cases): Microsoft Outlook → Project Review (Deltek Vantagepoint) → Microsoft Outlook → Edit Message body

Handover spec for the builder (text) →

Designed by AI from how the team did this work (2026-10-19 to 2026-10-23), the company's tools and its rules. A starting point for the builder: confirm system access and approvals before building.