How to Connect to Live SAP Ariba Source Data in Mistral AI Workflows and Agents (via CData Connect AI)

Mistral AI is a frontier AI company that builds enterprise-grade open-source and commercial large language models (LLMs). With Mistral, you can train, fine-tune, and deploy agents anywhere – on premises, in the cloud, or at the edge – while retaining full control of your data. Its agent-ready platform enables multilingual and multimodal AI that can search, create, code, automate, and collaborate securely, with support for memory and extended context handling.

CData Connect AI provides a secure cloud-to-cloud interface for easily integrating 350+ enterprise data sources with Mistral AI. Through CData Connect AI, Mistral AI agents can query, analyze, and act on live SAP Ariba Source data in real time, without replication. Connect AI manages authentication, security, and query optimization so you can focus on building intelligent workflows, while Mistral handles reasoning and natural language interaction.

In this guide, we will use Mistral AI's Le Chat, Mistral's customizable conversational chatbot, along with CData Connect AI to connect to live SAP Ariba Source data. You will be able to interact with your live SAP Ariba Source data directly in Mistral AI workflows – running queries and automating tasks securely.

The setup takes just a few minutes, and once connected, you will have your own chatbot agent intelligently conversing with your live SAP Ariba Source data.

Let's begin.

Prerequisites

1. A Mistral AI account – Sign up or log in here.
2. A CData Connect AI account – Sign up or log in here.
3. An active SAP Ariba Source account with valid credentials.

Overview

Here is a quick overview of the steps we will follow:

1. Connect: Add a connection to SAP Ariba Source in CData Connect AI using your credentials.
2. Configure: Create a custom MCP connection in Mistral AI Le Chat that points to your SAP Ariba Source connection in CData Connect AI.
3. Query: Interact with live SAP Ariba Source data in Mistral AI workflows – running queries and taking actions using natural language.

Step 1: Configure SAP Ariba Source Connectivity for Mistral

Connectivity to SAP Ariba Source from Mistral AI is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with SAP Ariba Source data from Mistral, we start by creating and configuring a SAP Ariba Source connection in CData Connect AI.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection.

2. Select "SAP Ariba Source" from the Add Connection panel.

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP Ariba Source.

   In order to connect with SAP Ariba Source, set the following:

   • API: Specify which API you would like the provider to retrieve SAP Ariba data from. Select the Supplier, Sourcing Project Management, or Contract API based on your business role (possible values are SupplierDataAPIWithPaginationV4, SourcingProjectManagementAPIV2, or ContractAPIV1).
   • DataCenter: The data center where your account's data is hosted.
   • Realm: The name of the site you want to access.
   • Environment: Indicate whether you are connecting to a test or production environment (possible values are TEST or PRODUCTION).

   If you are connecting to the Supplier Data API or the Contract API, additionally set the following:

   • User: Id of the user on whose behalf API calls are invoked.
   • PasswordAdapter: The password associated with the authenticating User.

   If you're connecting to the Supplier API, set ProjectId to the Id of the sourcing project you want to retrieve data from.

   Authenticating with OAuth

   After setting connection properties, you need to configure OAuth connectivity to authenticate.

   • Set AuthScheme to OAuthClient.
   • Register an application with the service to obtain the APIKey, OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret.

     For more information on creating an OAuth application, refer to the Help documentation.

   Automatic OAuth

   After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

   APIKey: The Application key in your app settings. OAuthClientId: The OAuth Client Id in your app settings. OAuthClientSecret: The OAuth Secret in your app settings.

   When you connect, the provider automatically completes the OAuth process:

   1. The provider obtains an access token from SAP Ariba and uses it to request data.
   2. The provider refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.
   3. The OAuth values are saved in memory relative to the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation.
   
4. Click Save & Test.
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SAP Ariba Source Connection page and update the user-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI from Mistral AI. It is a best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain fine-grained access control.

1. Click on the gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the Settings page.
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. Note: The PAT is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to SAP Ariba Source data from Mistral AI workflows.

Step 2: Configure the MCP Connector in Mistral Le Chat

With your SAP Ariba Source connection and PAT created in CData Connect AI, the next step is to configure a custom MCP connector inside Mistral Le Chat.

1. Log into Le Chat.
2. From the left-hand menu, click on Intelligence, then select Connectors. Click Add Connector.
3. In the dialog, select Custom MCP Connector and enter the following details:
   • Connector Name: For example, CData_Remote_MCP.
   • Connector Server: https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp (found in the "Connect Data to AI" ribbon in Connect AI).
   • Authentication Method: API Token Authentication.
   • Header Name: Authorization.
   • Header Value: Basic [email protected]:YourPAT (replace "[email protected]" with your CData Connect AI email and "YourPAT" with the PAT created earlier in above format).
   
4. Click Connect to establish the connection.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the Connections section to confirm that your MCP connection is successfully established.

This step ensures that Mistral Le Chat can securely route queries through the CData Remote MCP Server to your live SAP Ariba Source data.

Step 3: Query Live SAP Ariba Source Data from Mistral AI

Now that your MCP connector is configured in Le Chat, you can begin querying live SAP Ariba Source data directly in your conversations.

1. In Le Chat, click on Chats in the left menu to start a new chat.
2. Enable your MCP connector by clicking the Enable Tools button.
3. Run a discovery query such as Get Catalogs or Get Tables to see the available data sources and schemas connected through CData Connect AI.
4. Test the connection by running a simple query. For example: "Compare the win rate of Opportunities across different industries."

And that's it! You can now interact with live SAP Ariba Source data conversationally inside Mistral Le Chat.

Build Complex AI Agents with CData Connect AI

With the integration complete, you can go beyond simple queries and build complex, multi-step AI agents. These agents can combine reasoning from Mistral AI with secure, real-time access to your enterprise data through CData Connect AI, enabling workflows such as sales forecasting, support triage, customer trend analysis, and more.

Try CData Connect AI for free today and use the full power of Mistral AI agents with secure, live access to your enterprise data.