What your IT provider needs to do to connect Claude to Microsoft 365

Why the IT provider is involved at all

Claude reaches your email, files and Teams conversations through a connector that Anthropic provides. Microsoft lets an application like this into a business's Microsoft 365 only after an administrator of that tenant has approved it. In many Irish small and medium firms, that administrator works at the IT provider.

The approval is a one-time step for the whole tenant. Once it is done, each person connects their own account with their normal Microsoft sign-in, and nobody sees a consent prompt again.

What needs to be in place first

• Work or school Microsoft accounts in a Microsoft Entra tenant. Personal Outlook.com, Hotmail and Live accounts cannot connect.
• An active Microsoft 365 licence for each person who will connect.
• A Claude plan for those people. On Team and Enterprise plans, someone in your business holds the Owner role in Claude.
• A person with the Global Administrator role in your Microsoft tenant, usually at your IT provider.

Step 1: Your Claude owner adds the connector

On a Team or Enterprise plan, the Claude Owner or Primary Owner goes to Organisation settings, then Connectors, selects Add, finds Microsoft 365 and adds it for the organisation. On the individual plans there is no organisation step, but the Microsoft approval below is still needed.

Doing this first means the connector is ready in Claude by the time your IT provider approves it on the Microsoft side.

Step 2: The Global Administrator grants consent

Anthropic describes two ways to do this. The administrator can connect Microsoft 365 from Claude themselves and tick the option to grant access for the whole organisation. Or, if they do not have a Claude account, they can open Anthropic's admin consent link for your tenant ID in the browser, or select Grant admin consent on the connector's Permissions page in the Microsoft Entra admin centre.

Microsoft shows the list of permissions the connector requests before the administrator accepts. Anthropic notes that a successful approval returns a page whose address contains admin_consent=True.

Step 3: Limit access to the pilot group (optional)

After consent, two enterprise applications appear in Microsoft Entra: M365 MCP Server for Claude and M365 MCP Client for Claude. If the administrator sets Assignment required to Yes on both and adds only the pilot users or a group, nobody else in the business can connect.

This suits a business that wants to start with partners, directors or one team, and extend later by adding people to the group.

Step 4: Decide about write actions

By default the connector reads and searches. Claude can also send email, manage calendar events, create and update SharePoint files and send Teams messages, but only once write actions are turned on. If your tenant approved the connector before those permissions were added, a Global Administrator or Application Administrator approves the extra permissions once, and the Claude Owner enables write actions in Claude's organisation settings.

Many businesses start with read access and add write actions once people are used to the connector. Teams messaging tools are set individually in Claude, so you can allow some and not others.

Step 5: People connect their accounts

Each person opens Customise, then Connectors, in Claude, selects Connect next to Microsoft 365 and signs in with their work account. The button changes to Disconnect when it has worked.

If someone tries to connect before the administrator has approved the connector, they see an error saying an administrator must grant permission. That is expected, and it clears once consent is given.

What stays the same for your IT provider

• Claude uses delegated permissions, so each person reaches only what they could already open. SharePoint sharing settings and folder permissions still apply.
• Anthropic states that Conditional Access, group-based assignment and MFA policies are supported. Location and network restrictions are not, according to the same guide.
• The connector retrieves content on demand during a request and, according to Anthropic, does not cache file content.
• Anthropic states that it has completed Microsoft's publisher verification for the connector.
• Administrator rights to your tenant stay with your IT provider. Nobody else needs them for this setup.

One thing to check before people connect

Claude's SharePoint search covers every site a person can access, and Anthropic notes that limiting search to particular sites is not supported. If some folders are shared more widely than intended, Claude will find them, just as Microsoft search would. A quick review of over-shared sites with your IT provider is a sensible first task.