Before you turn it on
1
Decide which AI apps and plans staff may use
Whatever the AI app reads goes to that app’s provider. Business or enterprise plans usually offer stronger data terms than personal ones. See Data and privacy.
2
Start with Admin only, and View
Allow only the Admin role, and set a few areas to View.
3
Try it yourself
Connect your own AI app and ask “Who am I connected as?”, then a real question.
4
Add roles and areas
Once you are comfortable, add roles under Who can connect and raise areas, one at a time.
Turn it on
1
Open the MCP settings
In your admin portal, go to Settings → MCP Server.
2
Switch the server on
Turn on MCP server enabled. The Connect your AI app card appears with your server URL and client ID.
3
Check what AI apps can do
Under What AI apps can do, set each area to Off, View or Edit. See Areas and access levels.The first time you switch the server on, the page pre-selects every area, including the changes marked Drafts only, Adds only, Not-live courses only and the course invite edits marked Changes live. Features that are turned on separately stay off. Review the list and turn off anything you do not want before you save.
4
Choose who can connect
Under Who can connect, add the roles that may use an AI app. Only Admin is on at first. See Who can connect.
5
Save
Click Save settings. Nothing changes for your team until you save.
6
Share the server URL
Copy the Server URL from Connect your AI app and send it to the people you allowed. Each person adds it to their own AI app and signs in with their own account. See Connect Claude and the other connect guides.
What your team needs from you
Message to your team
Copy this, fill in the parts in angle brackets, and send it to the people you allowed.Message to your team
What happens when someone connects
- They paste the server URL into their AI app.
- Their browser opens your admin portal and asks them to sign in, if they are not signed in already.
- They see which app is asking and click Approve.
- The AI app can now use the areas you turned on, as that person.
Turn it off
Turn off MCP server enabled and click Save settings.- Every connected app is refused from its next request. Its list of tools becomes empty.
- Existing connections are not deleted. If you turn the server back on, they work again.
- To end a connection for good, revoke it under Active connections. See Connections and revoking.
Changes apply on the next request
The server checks your settings on every request. It does not cache them. When you save a change to areas, roles or the on/off switch, it applies to every connected app the next time that app asks for its tools or uses one. Nobody needs to reconnect. Some AI apps load the list of tools only when a chat starts. If a tool still shows in an open chat after you turned it off, using it is refused. A new chat shows the updated list.The AI app does the thinking with its own model. Reading and drafting through the MCP server uses no AI credits from your institute. Some actions have costs of their own, for example a phone call placed through the CRM. Those actions say so in their preview.