Before this: Set Up Claude
Skill
Connect Your Connectors
Connect your email, calendar, task manager and meeting notes, and know exactly what Claude can and cannot see.
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Overview
Give Claude access to the tools your work already lives in, with the least access that does the job.
When to use this
Before any lesson that asks Claude to read your inbox, calendar or task list.
Who it is for: Anyone about to build a system that reads or writes to their real accounts.
Before you begin
- A Claude account
- Permission to authorize access to the accounts you want to connect
- About twenty minutes without interruption
What you will learn
- Reading your calendar before a planning session
- Drafting replies inside your own inbox
- Creating tasks from a meeting you did not take notes in
- Working out why a connector returns nothing
Step by step
- 1List the tools your work actually lives in before you connect anything.
- 2Connect one at a time, and test each before adding the next.
- 3Grant the least access that does the job, reading before writing.
- 4Check which account each connector signed in as.
- 5Ask Claude what it can see, and compare that to what you expected.
- 6Name the list or folder where new items should go, in plain words.
- 7Write down what each connector is allowed to do, so you can answer for it later.
- 8Disconnect anything you connected to try out and did not keep.
- 9When a tool has no connector, work down the ladder in this lesson and say which rung you used.
ASK CLAUDE THIS AFTER EVERY CONNECTION
Tell me exactly what you can see through the connector I just authorized.
Specifically:
- 1Which account are you signed in as? Give me the full address.
- 2What can you read? Name the mailboxes, calendars, lists or folders.
- 3What can you change, create or delete?
- 4What did you expect to find and could not?
Do not summarize my data. I want the shape of the access, not the contents. If you cannot determine any of the above, say so plainly rather than guessing.
When There Is No Connector
Plenty of tools have no connector, and that is not the end of it. Work down this ladder and use the first rung that works.
- 1A connector, if one exists. Least effort, and Claude can refresh the data itself.
- 2Your own browser, signed in. Claude can read what is on the screen in front of you, which covers most dashboards that will never have a connector.
- 3An export. Almost every tool can produce a CSV. Upload it and say what period it covers.
- 4A screenshot. Fine for numbers you just need read once, and honest about being a snapshot.
- 5Typing it in. Rare, but for five numbers it beats an hour of integration.
The rung matters, because it decides whether this can run again next month without you. Rungs one and two can be scheduled. Rungs three to five cannot.
Checkpoint
You have done this when one tool is connected, tested, and you can say in a sentence what it is allowed to see.
Check Your Understanding
Progress is saved when signed in.
Example output
Example only
Example answer, after connecting a calendar Signed in as: you@yourcompany.example Can read: 3 calendars Work (full detail) Team (free and busy only, no titles) Personal (full detail) Can write: 1 calendar Work Cannot see: any calendar belonging to another account. If you expected a shared team calendar here, it has not been subscribed into this account, and I will not be able to see the meetings on it. Note: the Team calendar returns busy blocks with no titles, so anything I plan around it will avoid the time but cannot tell you what the meeting is.
Quality check
- Check every fact, figure, and quote against a real source.
- Review the finished work before using or sharing it.
- Remove confidential information that is not needed.
Privacy and safety
Do not include customer records, contracts, credentials, employee information, or confidential material without approval. A qualified person should review decisions involving people, money, health, or legal obligations.
Worth knowing
Connect one tool at a time and test it before adding the next. When something returns nothing, a wrong account is a far more common cause than a broken connector, because signing in as the wrong account fails silently.
Where this goes wrong
Granting write access on the first connection, before you have seen what the tool reads. Connecting several tools at once, so a failure has four possible causes. Assuming a silent connector is broken when it is signed in as a different account and genuinely sees nothing.
Next lesson
08
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