# Connect an AI assistant

> Let Claude read your club data directly from ClubPal, so an admin can ask it questions instead of hunting through admin pages.

Canonical: https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/connect-an-ai-assistant
Section: General

ClubPal can act as a connector for Claude, so you can ask an AI assistant things like "how many members are due to renew this month" or "what's booked in on Saturday" and get an answer drawn from your own club's data, without leaving the conversation. It works with both [Claude.ai](https://claude.ai) and [Claude Code](https://claude.com/product/claude-code).

The connection is read-only and personal to the admin who sets it up: it can look things up, but it can never edit a member, take a payment, cancel a session or send anything on your behalf.

## Before you start

- **You need admin access to your club.** Connecting requires the same **Access Administration** permission that gets you into the admin area at all. See [Permissions](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/permissions).
- **What it can read follows your own permissions**, not a fixed list. If you don't have **Manage Payments**, for example, it cannot answer questions about payments either, because it is acting as you.
- **Nothing is written.** Every question it can answer comes from a read-only lookup. There is no tool that changes a member, a booking, a payment or anything else.

> **Note**
>
> Each connection belongs to one admin. If a colleague wants Claude to answer with their own permissions, they connect separately from their own account.

## Connect from Claude.ai

1. In Claude.ai, go to **Settings > Connectors > Add custom connector**.
2. Paste in the connector address: `https://mcp.clubpal.app/mcp`.
3. Sign in when prompted, following [what happens at sign-in](#what-happens-at-sign-in) below.

## Connect from Claude Code

Run:

```
claude mcp add --transport http clubpal https://mcp.clubpal.app/mcp
```

The first time you use it, Claude Code opens a browser to complete the same sign-in as Claude.ai.

> **Info**
>
> Both routes use the same sign-in. There is no API key to generate or paste: it is your normal ClubPal login, the same way you'd sign in on the website.

## What happens at sign-in

1. You are asked to find **your club**. Start typing its name and pick it from the list. If you would rather, type its web address instead, either `myclub.clubpal.app` or your club's own domain. This first step happens on ClubPal's connector, before you reach your club's own site.
2. You're taken to your club's own site to sign in, exactly as you would to reach the admin area.
3. You're shown what's being connected and asked to **Allow** or **Cancel**. The screen names the profile whose permissions the connection will use, so check it before you allow.
4. Click **Allow**, and you're sent back to Claude, connected.

If you're signed in under the wrong profile, for example a managed profile with no admin access, switch profile from the account menu at the top of the page, then start the connection again. See [Linked profiles](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/membership/linked-profiles).

## What it can answer

| Question you might ask | What it looks at | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| What club is this, and what's switched on? | Club name, website, time zone, currency, membership year and which features are enabled | Admin access |
| Find a member, or look up their details | Member search and profile, including groups and permissions, but never payment details | View Members |
| How many members do we have, and what's our auto-renew rate? | Headline membership numbers, recomputed nightly | View Members |
| What membership types do we offer, and how many are on each? | Membership types (packages), prices and active counts | Manage Membership |
| How many memberships expiring this month will actually renew? | A renewals forecast for a date window, including how many have no working payment method | Manage Membership |
| What's on this week, and how full is it? | Session instances in a date window: booking counts, capacity, waiting list size | Manage Sessions |
| How many people usually turn up to Monday's session? | Past attendance for a session, with the mean and median turnout | Manage Sessions |
| How much have we taken this month, after fees and refunds? | A payments summary for a date window, grouped by day, week, month or category | Manage Payments |
| Find a specific receipt or payment | Individual receipts in a date window | Manage Payments |
| How do I do X in ClubPal? Can ClubPal do X? | ClubPal's own product documentation | Nothing extra, anyone connected can ask |

> **Tip**
>
> Ask it to start with "what club is this" if you want to see straight away which of your permissions it picked up, before asking anything more specific.

## Examples

Each of these is a plain question you can type into Claude once connected. Claude decides which lookups to run; you never name them.

**Planning a session**

> How many people should I expect at Tuesday's track session?

Claude finds Tuesday's instance, looks at the last eight times that session ran, and answers with the current booking count, the capacity, and the typical turnout (mean and median attended). Follow up with "is that up or down on last month". Naming who is booked is coming in a later release.

**Renewals**

> How many memberships expire in the next 60 days, and how many will actually renew?

You get the number expiring, how many have auto-renew on, and, of those, how many have no working card so the renewal will fail, broken down by membership type with the expected revenue. Listing the individual members behind those numbers is coming in a later release; for now, search for a member by name to check one person.

**Money**

> What did we take last month, and how does it split between sessions and memberships?

Claude runs a payments summary for the month grouped by category and reports gross, refunds, fees and net for each. Ask "and the month before" for a comparison, or "show me the largest receipts" to drill into individual payments.

**Members**

> Find Sam Jones and tell me when their membership expires and which groups they're in.

A member search followed by the profile. Payment details are never included, whatever you ask.

**Combining club data with the docs**

> Draft a reminder email to members whose membership lapses in March, explaining how auto-renew works.

Claude pulls the March renewals, then reads the ClubPal documentation on renewals to describe the process accurately, and drafts the text for you. It does not send anything: you copy the draft into an email yourself.

**Asking about ClubPal itself**

> Can I take a deposit for a pitch booking, and how do I turn it on?

This one needs no club data at all. Claude searches the ClubPal docs and walks you through the facility hire settings.

**Where it stops**

> Cancel Saturday's session and refund everyone.

Claude will tell you it cannot: the connection is read-only. It can tell you how many are booked and what the refunds would come to, and point you to **Admin > Sessions** to do it.

## Disconnecting

Go to **Admin > Connected Apps** to see everything connected under your account, with the profile it uses and when it was last used, and disconnect anything you no longer want to have access.

Disconnecting takes effect straight away: it stops the assistant answering anything new within a minute, everywhere. It does not affect anyone else's connection, only the one you disconnect.

> **Note**
>
> Because the connection acts as you, losing admin access or a permission has the same effect immediately: the assistant can no longer answer the questions that permission covered.

## Tips

- A connection stops working on its own 30 days after it was last used, so there is nothing to tidy up if you try it once and move on.
- Sessions, payments and receipts are all answered over a date window you (or Claude, on your behalf) choose. Asking a broad question like "this year" works, but a specific window such as "the last 30 days" gets a faster, more precise answer.
- If an answer looks wrong or missing, check which profile you connected as: the answer only ever reflects that profile's own permissions.
- Membership headline numbers are recomputed overnight, so a member who joined an hour ago will not show in the totals until tomorrow. Searching for them by name works straight away.

## See also

- [Permissions](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/permissions): what **Access Administration** and each other permission actually grants
- [Linked profiles](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/membership/linked-profiles): switching between the profiles you manage
- [Your account dashboard](https://www.clubpal.app/docs/general/account-dashboard): where your own account settings live