You can generate documents from a Word template in SharePoint by turning the template into a document generation form, and Copilot in SharePoint can fill that form for you from a chat prompt. Save the process as a site skill and Copilot will ask for every field the template needs, then drop the finished document into the right folder.
Structured document generation is a SharePoint feature built for contracts, NDAs, statements of work, offer letters and anything else where the layout and wording are approved and only the details change. Each submission creates a new document in a target folder, and the form values land in library columns so the documents can be sorted and filtered. General availability rolls out worldwide through October 2026.
How do you turn a Word template into a document generation form?
The manual route is Forms, then Document generation form on the library’s command bar. I asked Copilot in SharePoint to do it instead, using a master services agreement (MSA) as the template.
Copilot wouldn’t start until I’d selected the source Word document in the library, so it knew which file was the approved template. Because I was at the root of the library, it then asked me to name a folder for the generated documents. I called it MSA Submissions. Every document the form creates goes there.
The template then opened in Word with a pane on the right. Copilot had already read the document and suggested fields it could see, like the signing date, signature name and title. I kept those and added my own: I selected the client name text, created a required Single line of text field and used Insert to map it to the document, then did the same for a reference number. Supported field types go well beyond text, including choice, date, currency, managed metadata and SharePoint list lookups.
Publish and open in Forms closed the template and opened the finished form, with every field ready to fill.
Can Copilot in SharePoint fill the form for you?
Yes, in my demo. I asked Copilot to create a new MSA from the form for the client Contoso with reference number 1234. It filled both fields and came back saying two fields couldn’t be filled from the conversation: the signing date and the client’s signature name and title. I gave it those in the next message, it generated the document, and a card in the chat opened the new MSA from the MSA Submissions folder with every value in place.
It didn’t guess at a signature or a date. You still have to know what to give it, though, and an agreement template can carry more fields than anyone remembers in a first prompt.
Turning it into a site skill that asks the questions
So I asked Copilot to write a skill: create a new MSA from the MSA generation form in this library, and ask the user for whatever it needs to populate every field. If skills are new to you, skills in Copilot in SharePoint and OneDrive covers the basics. Copilot confirmed it should be a site skill, I agreed, and it saved it with trigger phrases like “create a new MSA”.
You don’t have to rely on trigger phrases. In my demo, typing a forward slash and the skill name ran it directly.
The first run didn’t work properly. The skill skipped the reference number, then said it didn’t have the form it needed to prefill. Pasting the form link into the chat got the document generated, which put the fault in the skill. After one update the skill worked in the chat but still wasn’t using the MSA template, and a second update telling it to use that template fixed it. Both fixes were plain requests to Copilot to update the skill.
I then tested it from a brand new chat two ways. Run with no details, the skill asked for each field in turn. Run with everything in the first message (client, signatory, title, date and reference number), it skipped the questions and generated the document straight away.
Test in a fresh chat before you hand a skill to anyone. Mine needed two fixes before it got that far.
Keep the approved wording in the template and the questions in the skill
I like this pattern because Copilot never writes the contract. The approved legal or HR wording stays in the template, the form decides which details can change and which are required, and the skill just collects those details from the person asking.
Whoever owns the agreement owns the template and its fields, and structural changes go back through Word and a republish, because published forms are read-only. The skill can be owned by the site owner, but it should never carry clauses or default values that belong in the template. If the skill and the template disagree, the template wins and the skill gets updated.
Check permissions before you roll it out. Site skills sit in the site’s Agent Assets library, and on a site where lots of people can edit, I’d lock that library down so only the people responsible for the process can change the skill. My test of every new Copilot in SharePoint feature covers the default skill permissions and how to change them. The form itself follows normal SharePoint permissions, and people who submit it don’t automatically get access to the destination library, so decide who needs to see the generated documents.
The obvious next step is feeding the skill from a Microsoft List: read the new rows, generate an MSA for each one. I haven’t built that yet. If you’re thinking along those lines, building a live dashboard on a Microsoft List shows how Copilot works with list data, and connecting Xero to Copilot in SharePoint shows a skill that writes external records into a list.
Frequently asked questions
What licence do you need for SharePoint document generation? The person creating the form needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence and Edit permission on the document library. Microsoft’s documentation doesn’t list a licence requirement for people who only fill in the form, and Copilot in SharePoint itself needs a Copilot licence.
Can SharePoint generate a PDF instead of a Word document? Yes. In the form’s generated file settings you can choose Word (.docx) or PDF, and set a file name pattern built from the form fields. PDF generation currently fails if sensitivity labels are enabled on the site or library.
Do I need to add my own reference number field? Probably not. Every generated document gets a unique reference number that’s never reused, and content managers can add a prefix or suffix and insert it into the template as a field. My demo used a manual reference number field, which the built-in number could replace.
What template formats does document generation support? Only .docx files. Annotated placeholders in the template, such as text in curly or square brackets, help Copilot detect the fields more accurately.
Can Power Automate generate documents from the same form? Yes, through preview actions including Form submitted and Generate document from form. Power Automate doesn’t apply conditional field visibility, so fields hidden in the form still appear in flow-generated documents unless you make them optional.
