Maker Quick Start — Agent Intake (Express Path)¶
Audience: A business user (the maker) who wants to build a low-risk personal AI agent in Microsoft Agent Builder or Copilot Studio.
Time required: ~3 minutes to submit. Sponsor approval typically within 3 business days.
What is the Express path?¶
Express is the fast lane for the lowest-risk agents — those that:
- Are for you (personal scope) (not customer-facing, not external)
- Use only data you already have access to (no NPI, no MNPI, no restricted records)
- Take no autonomous financial actions (no payments, no order entry, no irreversible external calls)
- Are not subject to enhanced regulatory routing (e.g., not OCC/FINRA/SEC supervised activity flow)
If any of those is not true, the form will tell you and route your request to the Standard or Full path, which ship in v1.0.0-preview.
What you fill in (the 10 questions)¶
Trigger questions (Yes / No / Not sure)¶
The first six questions determine whether you are eligible for Express. Answer honestly — "Not sure" routes you to the full intake (and that is the right answer when you are not sure).
| # | Question |
|---|---|
| T1 | Will this agent take any financial action automatically (e.g., place an order, transfer funds, modify a customer record)? |
| T2 | Will this agent process MNPI (material non-public information) or NPI (customer non-public personal information under GLBA)? |
| T3 | Is this agent regulated as a supervised activity (broker-dealer recommendation, advisory, lending, claims)? |
| T4 | Will this agent interact with external customers, counterparties, or regulators? |
| T5 | Will this agent use a connector or data source you do not currently have personal access to? |
| T6 | Is the data this agent uses subject to a residency requirement that differs from where you (the maker) work? |
Descriptive questions¶
| # | Question | What you enter |
|---|---|---|
| BJ-001 | Business outcome | Pick one from the dropdown (e.g., "Reduce time spent on weekly status reports") |
| BJ-002 | Expected user count | Estimate — e.g., "5 (my team)" |
| MR-001 | Sponsor | Your direct manager's email (auto-populated from Microsoft Graph) — confirm or override |
| MR-002 | Free-text justification | Optional. One paragraph if the dropdown does not capture your case. |
What happens after you click Submit¶
You ──► Form ──► Auto-classify ──► Sponsor card ──► (1-click) ──► Agent ID minted ──► You can build
│
└──► If any trigger = Yes/Not sure: saved as draft, full intake required
| Step | What happens | Who does it | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Form submits | You | Instant |
| 2 | Auto-classifier checks T1–T6 + computes tier/zone | System | <5 sec |
| 3 | If Express-eligible: Teams adaptive card sent to your sponsor | System | <30 sec |
| 4 | Sponsor reviews and clicks "Approve" with FINRA 3110 attestation | Your manager | Up to 3 business days |
| 5 | System mints your Microsoft Entra Agent ID and registers the agent | System | <2 min |
| 6 | You receive a Teams notification with your Agent ID and links to start building | System | Same as step 5 |
If the sponsor does not respond in 3 business days, the request escalates to their manager. If still no response after a further 4 business days, the request is denied with reason "no sponsor response" and you can re-submit with a different sponsor.
What you can do once approved¶
- Build your agent in Agent Builder or Copilot Studio
- Use connectors that are allowed by your environment's DLP policy (the form already simulated this — anything that would have failed was flagged at submission)
- Share your agent with the users you declared in the intake form (sharing beyond that count triggers a re-review via
unrestricted-agent-sharing-detector)
What stays on the record¶
Your sponsor's attestation, the trigger answers you gave, and the timestamp are recorded immutably for 7 years (FINRA 4511, SEC 17a-4, CFTC 1.31). You cannot edit them after submission. If your agent's purpose changes materially (e.g., a new trigger answer would now be Yes), submit a new intake — do not silently expand scope.
Help¶
- Form not loading: [link to your portal admin contact]
- Sponsor unsure how to approve: send them
sponsor-cheat-sheet.md - You need the full intake (Standard / Full path): see
maker-guide.mdfor the Standard and Full path walkthrough - General governance questions: see the FSI Agent Governance Framework