Use Microsoft Copilot Studio to talk to your OData Services via CData Connect AI

Cameron Leblanc
Cameron Leblanc
Senior Technology Evangelist
Leverage the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable Microsoft Copilot Studio to securely answer questions and take actions on your OData services for you.

Microsoft Copilot Studio is a no-code/low-code platform for creating AI Agents that can automate tasks, answer questions, and assist with various business processes. When combined with CData Connect AI Remote MCP, you can leverage Copilot Studio to interact with your OData services in real-time. This article outlines the process of connecting to OData using Connect AI Remote MCP and creating a connection in Copilot Studio to interact with your OData services.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to OData services. The CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Microsoft Copilot Studio and OData. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your OData services using Microsoft Copilot Studio, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to OData. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested OData services.

In this article, we show how to build a agent in Microsoft Copilot Studio to conversational explore (or Vibe Query) your data. The connectivity principals apply to any Copilot agent. With Connect AI you can build workflows and agents with access to live OData services, plus hundreds of other sources.

About OData Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live OData services data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Access OData versions 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0, working with legacy services and the latest features and capabilities.
  • Leverage advanced query options, including $filter, $select, and $expand, enhancing data retrieval from 3rd party tools.
  • Use Server-side execution of aggregation and grouping to minimize data transfer and boost performance.
  • Authenticate securely using a variety of schemes, including Azure AD, digest, negotiate, NTLM, OAuth, and more means secure authentication with every connection.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage OData service entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

Customers use CData's solutions to regularly integrate their OData services with preferred tools, such as Power BI, MicroStrategy, or Tableau, and to replicate data from OData services to their databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Step 1: Configure OData Connectivity for Microsoft Copilot Studio

Connectivity to OData from Microsoft Copilot Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with OData services from Microsoft Copilot Studio, we start by creating and configuring a OData connection in CData Connect AI.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Connections and click Add Connection
  2. Select "OData" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to OData.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid OData user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid OData server organization root or OData services file.

    Click Save & Test
  4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add OData Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, we are ready to connect to OData services from Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Step 2: Connect Microsoft Copilot Studio to CData Connect AI

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect AI MCP connection in Microsoft Copilot Studio:

  1. Under Tools, click Add tool, then click + New Tool.
  2. In the Add Tool window, search for and click CData Connect AI.
  3. In the Connect to CData Connect AI window, click Create to authenticate your connection CData Connect AI using OAuth authentication.
  4. Click Add and configure to add the CData Connect AI Tool to your agent.

Optional: Give the AI Agent context

This step establishes the AI Agent's role and provides context for the conversation through the Instructions property in the Agent. By providing instructions that explicitly informs the agent about its role as an MCP Server expert and lists the available tools, you can enhance the agent's understanding and response accuracy. For example, you can set the System Message to: 

You are an expert at using the MCP Client tool connected which is the CData Connect AI MCP Server. Always search thoroughly and use the most relevant MCP Client tool for each query. Below are the available tools and a description of each:
queryData: Execute SQL queries against connected data sources and retrieve results. When you use the queryData tool, ensure you use the following format for the table name: catalog.schema.tableName
getCatalogs: Retrieve a list of available connections from CData Connect AI. The connection names should be used as catalog names in other tools and in any queries to CData Connect AI. Use the `getSchemas` tool to get a list of available schemas for a specific catalog.
getSchemas: Retrieve a list of available database schemas from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog. Use the `getTables` tool to get a list of available tables for a specific catalog and schema.
getTables: Retrieve a list of available database tables from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog and schema. Use the `getColumns` tool to get a list of available columns for a specific table.
getColumns: Retrieve a list of available database columns from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog, schema, and table.
getProcedures: Retrieve a list of stored procedures from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog and schema
getProcedureParameters: Retrieve a list of stored procedure parameters from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog, schema, and procedure.
executeProcedure: Execute stored procedures with parameters against connected data sources

Step 3: Explore Live OData Services with Microsoft Copilot Studio

With the Agent created in Microsoft Copilot Studio and the MCP tool connected, you can now interact with your OData services using Microsoft Copilot Studio. The MCP tool allows you to send queries and receive responses from the OData data source in real-time.

Open the chat window in your Microsoft Copilot Studio Agent to begin interacting with your OData services. You can ask questions, retrieve data, and perform actions on your OData services using the MCP tool:

Get CData Connect AI

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