Infrastructure as Code4 min read
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Streamlining Cloud Deployments with Automation
Discover the benefit of IaC to streamline your Development process with Automation
Developer productivity
GitHub Copilot Enterprise Rollout
Techrupt Digital plans and runs GitHub Copilot rollouts for engineering organizations. We set up the right plan and policies, run a measured pilot, train your developers and show whether it's paying off.
Last updated
Proudly collaborated with
The common mistake
Buying seats is easy. Getting value from them is not
Most organizations turn on GitHub Copilot, send an announcement and find six months later that a third of the seats are idle. The teams that get real gains treat it as a change program. They set policies that security signs off on, pick pilot teams with a baseline, teach developers how to work with the agent rather than around it, and review usage every quarter. We're based in Metro Vancouver and run rollouts for teams across Canada and the US.
Plan and licence fit
Copilot Business or Enterprise, which teams need which, and how seats map to your GitHub organizations.
Policies and guardrails
Enterprise and organization policies, content exclusions for sensitive repositories, public code matching settings and audit logging.
Pilot and enablement
Pilot teams with clear scenarios, hands-on workshops for code completion, chat, code review and the coding agent, and internal champions.
Measure and optimize
Usage and acceptance metrics from GitHub alongside your own delivery metrics, reviewed quarterly to reassign idle seats.
How we roll it out
A GitHub Copilot rollout in three stages
Each stage ends with a decision, so the business case is proven before you buy seats for everyone.
1. Set up with security on board
Get security, legal and engineering leadership comfortable before the first developer logs in.
- Plan selection and enterprise or organization setup
- Policy configuration and model availability
- Content exclusions for secrets and regulated code
- Audit log streaming to your SIEM
2. Pilot with a baseline
A small set of teams, real work and numbers from before and after.
- Pilot team selection across languages and repos
- Baseline of cycle time, review time and throughput
- Workshops on chat, code review and the coding agent
- Weekly feedback and a shared prompt library
3. Scale and govern
Roll out team by team and keep the seat count honest.
- Rollout plan by department
- Copilot usage metrics dashboards
- Quarterly seat review and reassignment
- Guidance for custom instructions and repository context
Rollout guide
Planning a GitHub Copilot rollout
Policies, pilots, enablement and measurement: the four pieces that decide whether Copilot seats pay for themselves.
Setting policies before the first seat
GitHub Copilot is managed through policies at the enterprise and organization level. Decisions to make up front include which features are allowed, such as chat, the coding agent and code review; which models developers can choose; whether suggestions matching public code are blocked; and which repositories or files are excluded from Copilot entirely using content exclusions.
Security and legal teams usually care most about three things: whether code is retained or used for training, how intellectual property risk is handled, and whether usage can be audited. GitHub publishes its data handling commitments and records Copilot policy and seat changes in the audit log, and we walk your teams through both before rollout.
Designing a pilot that produces real numbers
A pilot should answer one question: where does Copilot help your teams, and by how much? That needs a design, not just a list of volunteers:
- Pick two to four teams with different languages and kinds of work
- Record a baseline before seats go live, such as pull request cycle time and review time
- Allow enough weeks of normal work to get past the learning curve
- Collect developer feedback weekly, not only at the end
- Compare results against the baseline and against teams without Copilot
Vendor studies report large productivity gains. Your own numbers are what justify the budget and show where Copilot helps most in your codebase.
Teaching developers to work with Copilot
The biggest gap we see is developers using Copilot only as autocomplete. Larger gains come from chat for understanding unfamiliar code, generating tests and documentation, reviewing pull requests and, increasingly, handing well-defined tasks to the coding agent and reviewing the pull request it opens.
Repository custom instructions help Copilot follow your conventions, frameworks and naming, so teams spend less time correcting its output. We help each team write them during enablement.
Managing seats over time
GitHub provides Copilot usage metrics such as active users and suggestion acceptance. We pair them with your delivery metrics and review them quarterly. Idle seats get reassigned, teams with low usage get targeted help, and features nobody uses get switched off.
That review is what keeps the cost of Copilot aligned with its value as teams, tools and pricing change.
Common rollout mistakes
The organizations that are disappointed with GitHub Copilot usually made one of a handful of avoidable mistakes:
- Buying seats for everyone at once, with no baseline to compare against
- Leaving policies at their defaults without security or legal review
- No training beyond a launch announcement
- Measuring only suggestion acceptance, which says little about delivery speed
- Never reviewing seats, so idle licences renew year after year
None of these are about the tool. They're about treating Copilot as a licence purchase rather than a change in how teams work.
Client stories
What our clients say
Techrupt team is a true professional. They were not only an expert at all things Microsoft Azure, scripting and PowerShell, but also familiar with the full software development lifecycle, DevOps and much more.
Andrew Hart, American Estate and Trust
How we work
Let's figure out what you need
Every engagement starts with understanding your business. From there we plan, then deliver with senior Microsoft-certified consultants at every step.
STEP 01
Consultation
You're the expert in your business. We learn your goals, constraints and current environment so we can recommend what will actually move the needle.
STEP 02
Gameplan
You get a clear plan with scope, timeline and costs, built by senior specialists, so you know exactly what you're getting before work begins.
STEP 03
Implementation
Our certified team delivers, documents and hands over, with measurable results and support after go-live.
FAQ
GitHub Copilot rollout, answered
Should we choose Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise?
Copilot Business covers the core features most teams use every day, with organization-level management and policy controls. Copilot Enterprise adds features aimed at larger engineering organizations on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, such as deeper use of your organization's own code and documentation as context. Many companies start on Business and move specific teams to Enterprise once they see where the extra features pay off. GitHub's plan comparison page has the current feature list, and we map it to your teams during planning.
Is our code used to train GitHub's models?
GitHub states that for Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise, your prompts, suggestions and code are not used to train its models. Admins can also exclude sensitive repositories or paths from Copilot entirely with content exclusions. We review these settings with your security team during setup.
Does GitHub Copilot work if our code is in Azure DevOps?
Yes. Copilot works inside editors such as Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio regardless of where your repositories are hosted. Some features, like pull request summaries and code review on GitHub, need the code on GitHub. If you're considering moving, see our GitHub Enterprise migration service.
How do we measure whether Copilot is worth it?
Combine GitHub's Copilot usage metrics, such as active users and suggestion acceptance, with your own delivery data, such as pull request cycle time and review time. We set that baseline before the pilot so you can compare like for like.
How long does a rollout take?
Setup and policy work is usually quick. The pilot is the part that needs time to produce trustworthy numbers, typically several weeks of normal work. We agree the timeline once we know how many teams and repositories are in scope.
Is GitHub Copilot suitable for regulated industries?
It can be, with the right configuration. Content exclusions keep sensitive repositories out of Copilot, policies restrict features and models, audit logs record changes, and GitHub's published data commitments for Business and Enterprise plans cover retention and training. We document the configuration for your security and compliance review.
Do you also help with GitHub Advanced Security?
Yes. Code scanning, secret scanning and dependency review often go alongside a Copilot rollout, because Copilot speeds up how quickly code is written and security checks need to keep pace. We can set them up in the same engagement where you're licensed for them.
How many seats should we start with?
Enough to produce a clear result across a few teams, usually a subset of the engineering organization rather than everyone. The pilot should cover different languages and kinds of work so the results apply broadly. We size it with you during planning.
Which editors does GitHub Copilot support?
GitHub Copilot works in Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs and several other editors, as well as on GitHub.com and in the GitHub CLI. Feature availability varies by editor, so we check the current support list against the tools your teams use.
Insights
Latest Infrastructure as Code articles
Infrastructure as Code3 min read
Best practices for Azure Resource Manager Templates
Learn the Best Practices of using Azure Resource Managed (ARM) to build efficient templates for your Azure Cloud deployments.
Infrastructure as Code10 min read
Why Use Infrastructure as Code?
Read about why you need to use Infrastructure as Code in your organization to scale and automate the deployments in this article.
Next steps
Roll out GitHub Copilot with numbers to back it up
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll look at your GitHub setup, your teams and your security requirements, and outline a rollout plan.