Getting started with the SquaredUp MCP

The SquaredUp MCP server connects Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot or Cursor straight to your SquaredUp organization. Ask about your dashboards, health and KPIs and get answers from live data, or have your assistant build and update dashboards for you, without leaving the chat.

What is an MCP?

Your AI assistant is smart, but it can’t know about systems it can’t reach. To ask an unconnected agent about your SquaredUp data, you have to manually copy it into the chat every time something changes.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) fixes that. It's an open standard that lets an AI assistant directly use other products. Think of it as a socket for AI to plug into: any assistant that supports MCP can connect to any product that offers an MCP server, with no custom integration in between.

An MCP server hands the assistant a list of plain-language actions it can do, such as list dashboards or run this tile. The assistant reads the list and picks whichever action it needs to answer your question. You don't need to write code or learn a query language. You just talk to it.

Your assistant sees exactly what you can see in SquaredUp, there's no API key to manage, and most assistants ask your permission before changing anything.

Getting set up only takes a few minutes. An admin enables MCP for the organization; then you simply add the server address to your assistant and sign in.

What an assistant can do

• Dashboards and tiles
  List, read, create, clone and update dashboards and tiles, and run them to get the data back.
• Data and the knowledge graph
  Query data streams, resolve objects, and run graph queries across your data sources.
• Workspaces and data sources
  List and manage workspaces and data sources, and look up the plugins they use.
• KPIs and alerting
  Create and manage KPIs, alerting rules, notification channels and scheduled reports.
• Sharing and access
  Manage open access links, permissions on workspaces and dashboards, and users.

Example interaction

It's Monday morning and you have a stand-up in ten minutes. Instead of rushing to click through every workspace to see if anything broke over the weekend, you ask your assistant:

"Which of my workspaces are unhealthy right now, and why?"

Then behind the scenes:

1. Your assistant works out that the answer is in SquaredUp.
2. It asks the SquaredUp MCP server for your workspaces and their health.
3. SquaredUp returns the live data.
4. Your assistant explains what is wrong in plain English, and can dig into the dashboards behind it if you want more.

A few seconds later you have a short summary of what needs attention. Follow up with "Turn that into an update for the team" and you have something to paste straight into Slack.

Before you start

Turn on MCP

You need to be a tenant admin to change this setting.

1. In SquaredUp, go to Settings > AI.
2. Under External AI, enable Allow assistants to connect over MCP.
3. Optionally, select an assistant under Allow users to chat with their own assistant. This adds a Chat in button to every dashboard, which opens a new chat in that assistant's web app, ready to discuss the dashboard. Each user still needs to connect that assistant to SquaredUp first, as described in Connect your assistant.

Find your server address

Use the address for the region your organization is hosted in. If you sign in to SquaredUp on an eu. address, your organization is in the EU.

• US: https://mcp.squaredup.com/mcp
• EU: https://eu.mcp.squaredup.com/mcp

Connect your assistant

Every user connects their own assistant once, using the server address for their region. The first time it connects, a browser window opens for you to sign in to SquaredUp and, if you belong to more than one organization, pick which one.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "squaredup": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.squaredup.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "squaredup": {
      "url": "https://mcp.squaredup.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "squaredup": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.squaredup.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Add the SquaredUp skills

Skills teach your assistant how to work with SquaredUp well, such as how to build a dashboard or write a graph query. The Claude plugin includes them. For any other agent that supports Agent Skills, run:

npx skills add squaredup/mcp

See the squaredup/mcp repository for installing individual skills.

Try your first prompt

1. Ask a broad question to check the connection, such as What's in my SquaredUp organization?
2. Approve the tool calls when your assistant asks. Read-only calls like listing dashboards may run without asking.
3. Follow up with something specific, such as Summarize the Production overview dashboard for a leadership update.

More prompts to try:

• "Which of my workspaces are unhealthy right now, and why?"
• "Build me a dashboard showing Azure costs by subscription for the finance team."
• "Who has access to the Customer A workspace?"
• "List the scheduled reports that go to external email addresses."

Troubleshooting

• MCP access required
  None of your organizations can use MCP yet. Your organization needs to be on the Enterprise plan, and a tenant admin needs to turn on MCP in Settings > AI. MCP is in private preview, so if both are true, contact SquaredUp Support to request access.
• No access
  Your SquaredUp account isn't a member of any organization on this server. Check that you're using the server address for your region.

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