Setup Documentation

AI Assistant Connector

Let your own AI assistant — Claude on the web or desktop, Claude Code, or any assistant that speaks the Model Context Protocol — look things up in your CRM and capture work for you, as you, with exactly your permissions. Ask it "what is Eddie doing Thursday?", "book an estimate visit at 4602 Nevada Path Tuesday at 8:30", or "start a property inspection draft for the Hale property and fill in these three trees".

What it is

Digital Arborist runs a remote MCP server at https://digitalarborist.app/mcp. An assistant that connects to it gets a small set of named tools (listed below) and uses them to answer your questions and to create or edit records on your behalf. Every call runs under your own sign-in: the assistant can never see more than you can, and everything it does is recorded under your name, exactly like your own clicks.

The connection is per person, not per firm. Each staff member connects their own assistant and can disconnect it at any time; an owner or admin can see everyone's connections and end any of them.

Turning it on for your firm

It is off by default. An owner or admin turns it on under More › Settings › Features › Feature Toggles › AI assistants. Turning it off again pauses every connected assistant in the firm within a minute — nobody has to disconnect anything by hand. Treat the toggle as the firm's approval of the AI providers its staff may connect: once it is on, any staff member with the project-manager role or above can connect the assistant of their choice, and the CRM data they can see flows to that provider under that provider's terms.

Connecting your assistant

You start from the assistant, not from the CRM. You need the project-manager role or above.

Claude (claude.ai, desktop, mobile)

Settings › Connectors › Add custom connector.
Paste https://digitalarborist.app/mcp. Claude detects the server's published sign-in settings; keep the default identity option.
A Digital Arborist sign-in page opens. Enter your usual email and password (and your two-step code, if your account uses one).
Review what the assistant will be allowed to do and press Allow. You are sent straight back to Claude.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http digital-arborist https://digitalarborist.app/mcp

Then type /mcp in a session, pick digital-arborist, and complete the same sign-in in your browser.

Check it worked

In the CRM, open Account › Connected assistants. Your assistant is listed with what it may do and when it last acted. Ask it something simple — "list our job types" — to confirm.

What it can and cannot do

Scope of a connected assistant
It can	It cannot
Read customers, properties, jobs, appointments, the schedule, calendar notes, inspection reports and (owners/admins) firm settings	Read anything your role cannot
Book or move an appointment	Email a customer, ever
Write up a job as an estimate with tasks and prices	Approve, complete, invoice or cancel a job; record or move money
Start or edit an inspection report draft	Submit a report (you review and submit it in Reports)
Act only with the permissions you ticked on the consent screen	Delete anything, change settings, or act for another staff member

A job or report an assistant created is marked Created via Claude (or the assistant's name) on the record, and every action — reads included — is in the firm's audit trail.

The tools

These are the exact tools the server offers. An assistant chooses among them from their descriptions; you never call them yourself. Names are listed so you can recognise them when an assistant asks for approval.

Reading

Read-only tools (permission: view CRM data; firm settings need owner/admin)
Tool	What it does
`search_customers`	Find a customer or property by name, company, phone, email, street, job or invoice number.
`get_customer`	One customer: contact details, account summary, every address with recent jobs, appointments, reports, invoices.
`search_jobs`	Customers and properties by paid work done in a date range — job type, species, description.
`get_job`	One job: tasks and prices, totals, status, notes, every crew date.
`get_appointment`	One appointment: date, time, type, who, notes.
`get_schedule`	The calendar per person for up to 14 days — "what is Eddie doing Thursday", "who is free Tuesday morning".
`list_employees`	The staff roster with both ids each person has (crew lane and login).
`list_calendar_notes`	Time off, equipment down, reminders — the notes on the schedule that are not jobs.
`list_job_types`	The services your firm sells, with ids.
`list_appointment_types`	Appointment types with default durations.
`list_report_types`	Inspection / arborist report types.
`get_report_form`	A report type's form: its categories and the exact fields each entry carries.
`get_inspection_report`	One report with every entry and photo reference.
`get_firm_settings`	Firm name, contact details, timezone, invoice prefix, payment and program terms (owners and admins).

Capturing work

Write tools (permissions: appointments, jobs, report drafts — each ticked separately at consent)
Tool	What it does
`create_appointment`	Book an appointment for a customer at one of their properties, assigned to one person.
`update_appointment`	Move, reassign or edit an appointment. Only the fields named change.
`create_job`	Write up a job as an estimate with priced tasks and optional crew dates. Never emailed, never approved.
`update_job`	Edit a job's title, notes, tasks or dates. Nothing is deleted, no status changes.
`create_inspection_report`	Start an inspection report draft with entries filled from the form. Never submitted.
`update_inspection_report`	Correct or extend a report draft. Never submitted.

Every write is safe to retry — the same request twice creates one record, not two — and every edit changes only the fields the assistant named.

Disconnecting

You: Account › Connected assistants › Disconnect. The assistant's next request is refused; it will ask you to connect again.
An owner or admin: the same screen shows everyone in the firm and can disconnect any of them.
Automatically: when you change your password, when an admin resets it, when your account is deactivated, or when your role drops below project manager.
The whole firm: turn the Feature Toggle off.

How it is secured

Standard OAuth 2.1 with PKCE. Your password is entered only on digitalarborist.app and is never shared with the assistant.
The assistant holds a short-lived access token (60 minutes) and a refresh token (30 days) that is replaced on every use; a reused refresh token ends the connection outright.
Tokens work only for this server and only for your account; they are stored hashed.
The sign-in uses the same password rules, lockouts and two-step verification as the app.
Permissions can only narrow what your role already allows — never widen it.
Every tool call is audited with your name, the assistant's name and the tool used.

More on the platform's controls: Security.

Other MCP clients

Any client that implements the Model Context Protocol's Streamable HTTP transport with OAuth can connect to https://digitalarborist.app/mcp. The server publishes its discovery documents at https://digitalarborist.app/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp and https://digitalarborist.app/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server, accepts Client ID Metadata Documents, and still supports Dynamic Client Registration for clients that need it (Copilot Studio, VS Code, Gemini CLI). Only public clients (no client secret) are supported. Rate limits apply per connection; a client that retries aggressively will be slowed, not banned.