Word
Outlook
Claude
CopilotAnalyze
Intermediate·30 min
Reconcile a budget export against actuals and draft commentary
Have Copilot Cowork compare an approved quarterly budget to actual spend and generate the variance commentary.
ExcelUpdated Sep 30, 2026
Scenario
You have a budget export, a status report, and an email thread — and they disagree.
Mission
Reconcile the three sources into a single accurate number.
Start Files
q3-budget-export.csv
Raw finance export, one row per region.
status-report.txt
Status report excerpt flagging a revision.
email-thread.txt
Email thread confirming the revised figure.
| Region | Budget |
|---|---|
| North | 42000 |
| South | 31500 |
| East | 28900 |
| West | 26000 |
Preview — first 5 rows of q3-budget-export.csv
Your task
- Pull the regional figures out of the CSV export.
- Read the status report and email thread — one of them flags that a figure in the CSV is stale.
- Reconcile the conflict and draft a 1-page Word summary with the corrected total, noting which source you trusted and why.
Prompt idea:
I'm giving you a CSV budget export, a status report, and an email thread about the same numbers. One region's figure was revised after the CSV was generated. Find the conflict, tell me which source is authoritative and why, and give me the corrected total.
Check Your Result
What is the correct total budget across all 4 regions, once you reconcile the sources?
Need a hint?
The CSV export is stale for one region — the email thread has the number finance actually approved.
Reveal Solution
The solution files contain the completed challenge. Review the approach to see if you missed any edge cases.
No solution file yet for this playground.
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