Use Claude to Talk to Your Excel Online 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 Excel Online data. The CData Connect Cloud Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Claude and Excel Online. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your Excel Online 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 Excel Online. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Excel Online data.

Step 1: Configure Excel Online Connectivity for Claude

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

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

2. Select "Excel Online" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Excel Online.

   You can connect to a workbook by providing authentication to Excel Online and then setting the following properties:

   • Workbook: Set this to the name or Id of the workbook.

     If you want to view a list of information about the available workbooks, execute a query to the Workbooks view after you authenticate.

   • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are connecting to a workbook in a sandbox account. Otherwise, leave this blank to connect to a production account.

   You use the OAuth authentication standard to authenticate to Excel Online. See the Getting Started section in the help documentation for a guide. Getting Started also guides you through executing SQL to worksheets and ranges.

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 Excel Online Excel Online 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!