Use Claude to Talk to Your Act CRM Data via CData Connect Cloud

Claude is a family of advanced large language models (LLMs) built by Anthropic, an AI research company founded in 2021. These models power the Claude conversational assistant and developer tools.

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to Act CRM data. The CData Connect Cloud Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Claude and Act CRM. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your Act CRM data using Claude, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Act CRM. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Act CRM data.

Step 1: Configure Act CRM Connectivity for Claude

Connectivity to Act CRM from Claude is made possible through CData Connect Cloud Remote MCP. To interact with Act CRM data from Claude, we start by creating and configuring a Act CRM connection in CData Connect Cloud.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Act CRM" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Act CRM.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid Act! user credentials. In addition to the authentication values, see the following:

   • Connecting to Act! Premium

     In addition to the authentication values, the URL to Act! is also required; for example https://eup1-iis-04.eu.hosted.act.com/.

     Additionally, you must specify the ActDatabase you will connect to. This is found by going to the About Act! Premium menu of your account, at the top right of the page, in the ? menu. Use the Database Name in the window that appears.

   • Connecting to Act! Premium Cloud

     To connect to your Act! Premium Cloud account, you also need to specify the ActCloudName property. This property is found in the URL address of the Cloud account; for example https://eup1-iis-04.eu.hosted.act.com/ActCloudName/.

   Note that retrieving ActCRM metadata can be expensive. It is advised that you set the CacheMetadata property to store the metadata locally.

4. Click Save & Test

Step 2: Connect Claude to CData Connect Cloud

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect Cloud connector in Claude:

1. Sign in to Claude.ai or create a new account.
2. Expand the left navigation menu.
3. In the bottom-left corner, click your user name and select Settings from the menu. The Settings screen appears.
4. In the Settings screen, click Connectors.
5. In the top-right corner, set your button toggle to Organization connectors.
6. Click Add custom connector at the bottom of the page.
7. Enter a name for the connector (such as Connect Cloud MCP).
8. In the Remote MCP server URL field, enter https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp.
9. Click Add to save the connector. The Connect Cloud MCP connector appears under Connectors.
10. Click Connect to the right of the connector and enter your CData Connect Cloud user name and password. You have now connected Claude to CData Connect Cloud.

11. Click the three dots after Connected and select Tools and settings.

12. Review the provided tools and enable or disable specific tools made available by the server. In addition, determine whether you want unsupervised access to the tools, or whether you want Claude to ask your permission.
13. Click Done when finished with your settings.

Step 3: Explore Live Act CRM Act CRM data with Claude

1. In the left navigation menu of Claude, click New chat.
2. You can now start exploring your data with natural language prompts. Claude outlines the steps it uses to retrieve data from the source in CData Connect Cloud. Refer to CData's prompt library for prompt ideas.

NOTE: Claude's setup process is subject to change. Refer to Claude's documentation for the latest setup information.

Get CData Connect Cloud

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect Cloud today!