Integrate Dify with Live Sage 200 Data via CData Connect AI

Anusha M B
Anusha M B
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable Dify agents and workflows to securely access and query live Sage 200 data.

Dify is an open source platform for building production-ready agentic workflows, chatbots, and other LLM applications. It includes built-in, two-way support for the model context protocol (MCP), allowing you to register remote MCP servers as tools in the platform to add external data sources and give your agents access to live data.

By integrating Dify with CData Connect AI through the built-in MCP Server, Dify gains governed, real-time access to live Sage 200 data. You can list catalogs, explore schemas, and query records from Sage 200 data using natural language prompts, with all data access running securely against authorized sources.

This article explains how to configure Sage 200 connectivity in Connect AI, generate the required personal access token, register the Connect AI MCP Server as a tool in Dify, add it to an agent application, and verify the integration by querying live Sage 200 data from Dify.

Step 1: Configure Sage 200 connectivity for Dify

Connectivity to Sage 200 from Dify is made possible through Connect AI's Remote MCP Server. To interact with Sage 200 data from Dify, start by creating and configuring a Sage 200 connection in Connect AI.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. Adding a connection in Connect AI
  2. Select Sage 200 from the Add Connection panel
    3. Selecting data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Sage 200.
    • Schema: Determines which Sage 200 edition you are connecting to. Specify either StandardUK or ProfessionalUK.
    • Subscription Key: Provides access to the APIs that are used to establish a connection. You will first need to log into the Sage 200 API website and subscribe to the API edition that matches your account. You can do so here: https://developer.columbus.sage.com/docs/services/api/uk. Afterwards, the subscription key may be found in your profile after logging into Sage 200.
    Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab and update user-based permissions
    6. Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI from Dify. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each integration to maintain granular access control.

  1. Click the gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open Settings
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT
  3. Give the PAT a descriptive name and click Create
    4. Creating a new PAT
  4. Copy the token when displayed and store it securely. It will not be shown again

With the Sage 200 connection configured and a PAT generated, Dify can now connect to Sage 200 data through Connect AI.

Step 2: Register the Connect AI MCP Server in Dify

Next, register the Connect AI Remote MCP Server as a tool in Dify so your agents and workflows can discover and call live data tools through Connect AI.

  1. Log into Dify, or open your self-hosted Dify instance (version 1.6.0 or later, which includes built-in MCP support)
  2. Navigate to the Integrations page, select Tools and click MCP tab
    3. Navigate to MCP
  3. Click Add MCP Server (HTTP) and enter the following details:
    • Server URL: https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp
    • Name Icon: Give a descriptive name, for example, CData Connect AI
    • Server Identifier: A unique identifier, for example, cdata-connect-ai
    • Headers: Add an Authorization header with the value Basic your_base64_encoded_email_PAT

    Note: Dify will use Basic authentication with Connect AI. Combine your Connect AI user email and the PAT you created earlier in the format email:PAT, base64 encode the combined string, and prefix it with Basic.

  4. Click Add & Authorize. Dify connects to the Connect AI MCP Server and lists the available tools Adding the Connect AI MCP Server in Dify

With the MCP server registered, the Connect AI tools are available to any agent application or workflow in your Dify workspace.

Step 3: Query live Sage 200 data from Dify

With the integration complete, build an agent application in Dify and interact with live Sage 200 data through natural language prompts.

  1. From the Dify Studio page, click Create from Blank and select Agent as the application type Viewing the Connect AI MCP tools in Dify
  2. In the agent configuration, click Add under the Tools section and select the Connect AI MCP tools registered in Step 2 Adding the Connect AI MCP tools to a Dify agent
  3. Select an LLM provider and model for the agent so it can interpret prompts and call MCP tools
  4. In the preview panel, type a prompt in the chat input, for example:
    • Use the cdata-connect-ai tools to list all available catalogs
    • Show the available schemas and tables for Sage 200
    • Query the top 5 records from a table in Sage 200
  5. The Dify agent calls the Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from Sage 200 data Querying live data from a Dify agent

At this point, Dify communicates with the Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live Sage 200 data through remote MCP tools directly from your agentic workflows.

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