Solway runs hands-on Microsoft Copilot training for Calgary companies that already have Copilot licenses, or are deciding whether to buy them, and want their team using it inside daily work instead of the occasional email draft. Sessions run half a day or a full day, on-site in Calgary or live-virtual, for up to 20 people, and cover Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint using your team's own files. Training is eligible for Canada-Alberta Productivity Grant (CAPG) funding.

The problem this solves

Most companies that roll out Copilot get a short burst of curiosity followed by a long stretch of underuse. People try it on an email or two, don't see it save real time, and go back to working the old way. That's usually not a Copilot problem. It's a training problem: nobody showed the team the workflows where Copilot actually earns its keep, and nobody built any safe, repeatable habits around it.

This training fixes that by working through your team's real tasks, in Copilot, during the session, so people leave with habits that stick the next morning instead of a memory of a demo.

Who this is for

Business teams and managers on Microsoft 365 who want immediate productivity gains from Copilot and a shared understanding of how to use it safely. No coding background required.

What your team can do after this training

• Draft, summarize, and quality-check emails and documents faster using repeatable patterns, not one-off clever prompts

• Turn a Teams meeting into a pre-brief, live notes, decisions, and next steps without someone manually taking minutes

• Build a first-draft slide deck or executive summary in minutes instead of starting from a blank PowerPoint

• Generate Excel formulas and charts from a plain-language description, then verify the result before relying on it

• Know what Copilot should and shouldn't be trusted with, and keep the whole team working from the same safety and compliance expectations

How we teach it

Our training is workflow-first. Rather than a feature tour across five apps, we build one or two real workflows from your team, live, in front of the room, and use them to teach the underlying patterns that transfer to everything else.

The teaching thesis is simple: the tools are smart enough for most business work already. What holds teams back is a lack of context and a lack of habits, not a lack of clever prompts. We also teach Solway's Goldilocks Zone Model for deciding how much of a task to hand to Copilot: full automation with no human checkpoint is usually a mistake, and so is leaving everything manual because "it's not reliable enough yet." The middle path, where Copilot handles the first draft and a person reviews before anything goes out, is faster and more dependable than either extreme.

Curriculum

Module A: Foundations and safe use What Copilot can and can't do, permission boundaries, and prompting patterns you can reuse every day.

Module B: Everyday workflows, by app Task-focused sessions across Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, built around workflows your team already does.

Module C: Agents and the Copilot ecosystem A non-technical primer on where Copilot is heading: Copilot agents for handling multi-step tasks, Copilot Studio and Agent Builder for building a simple agent without code, and connectors that let Copilot work with your business data through Microsoft Graph.

Module D: Adoption and governance Practical guidelines, change management, and an operational checklist for IT and team leads rolling this out past the room.

Format and logistics

• Half-day (roughly 3.5 hours across three sessions) or full-day

• Up to 20 participants

• On-site in Calgary, or live-virtual for teams anywhere in Alberta

What's included

• A discovery intake before the session, capturing your team's workflows and sample files

• Hands-on, context-specific exercises using your own files, not generic examples

• Role-specific prompt cards and a quick-start playbook (PDF)

• Post-training office hours and a success checklist

Delivered work

Solway trains business teams and leaders across Calgary and Alberta on Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude, and we tailor every session to the platform and workflows the client already has in place.

"AI thought leaders with a talent for communicating technical concepts to beginners." Josh Malate, Co-Founder and President, Ultimarii

Funding: this training may qualify for CAPG

The Canada-Alberta Productivity Grant (CAPG) reimburses part of what you spend on third-party training, including AI training under the program's "Digital and technological" skills category. Solway, as an independent third-party trainer, qualifies as an eligible provider.

• For existing employees: the grant covers 50% of training costs, up to $5,000 per employee per fiscal year

• For newly hired, previously unemployed Albertans: the grant covers up to 75%, up to $10,000 per employee per fiscal year

• Employers can claim up to $100,000 per fiscal year in total

What that looks like in practice, using the existing-employee rate: a team of 5 could have up to $25,000 in eligible training costs reimbursed in a year (5 x the $5,000 cap). A team of 10 could see up to $50,000 reimbursed. At 20 employees, the per-person caps add up to exactly the $100,000 annual employer limit.

Training needs to be delivered by a qualified instructor rather than self-study, which is exactly how we run these sessions. A recent update to the program also removed the old minimum-hours and certification requirements, so a half-day or full-day workshop like this one qualifies on its own. We can walk you through what documentation you'll need when we scope your training.

FAQ

Do we need specific Copilot licensing before booking this training? We confirm this during intake planning. Copilot availability depends on your Microsoft 365 licensing, and we'll make sure the right licenses are in place, or on order, before the session so nobody is stuck watching instead of participating.

Is our data safe when we use Copilot? Copilot in Microsoft 365 follows Microsoft 365's own compliance and data handling standards, meaning your organization's existing terms with Microsoft apply. During training, exercises use approved sample or redacted materials so nothing sensitive is exposed while people are still learning.

Can this be delivered on-site, or does it have to be virtual? Both. We deliver on-site across Calgary, and live-virtual for teams anywhere in Alberta or further afield.

Can you customize the training for our industry or workflows? Yes. The discovery intake before the session captures your team's actual workflows and sample files, and we build the hands-on exercises around them rather than generic examples.

How is Copilot different from ChatGPT or Claude, and how do we choose? Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude are all frontier-capable tools. If your organization is already on Microsoft 365, Copilot has the advantage of living directly inside Outlook, Word, Excel, and Teams, so there's no separate app to open. Solway trains on all three platforms, and our AI training hub page can help you think through which one, or which combination, fits your team.

Does anyone on our team need to know how to code? No. Everything in this training happens in plain English. The skill we're teaching is giving Copilot clear, specific instructions, not writing anything that looks like code.

Is this training eligible for the CAPG grant? Yes, in most cases. AI training delivered by a qualified third-party instructor, like Solway, falls under CAPG's "Digital and technological" skills category. See the funding section above for the reimbursement math, and confirm your specific eligibility on the Government of Alberta's CAPG page before applying.

Does a half-day workshop meet CAPG's minimum training requirement? Yes. CAPG does not set a minimum number of training hours. An earlier version of the program required a longer commitment and formal certification, but that requirement has been removed, so a half-day or full-day Copilot workshop qualifies on its own.

About Solway

Solway is a Calgary-based AI strategy and engineering partner. Our training is built to change daily habits, not just demo features, so your team leaves knowing how to use Copilot confidently the next morning. Shaheer Tariq, Co-Founder and Principal, leads the training practice, and we train on Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude so our recommendation for your team is based on your stack, not on which platform we're trying to sell.

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