Use ChatGPT to Talk to Your SAS Data Sets Data via CData Connect AI

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Leverage the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable ChatGPT to securely answer questions and take actions on your SAS Data Sets data for you.

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, launched in November 2022. Based on large language models (LLMs), it enables users to refine and steer conversations through natural language processing. ChatGPT's developer mode, available to Plus and Pro subscribers, provides full Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for connecting to external data sources and tools.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to SAS Data Sets data. The CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between ChatGPT and SAS Data Sets. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your SAS Data Sets data using ChatGPT, 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 SAS Data Sets. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested SAS Data Sets data.

Step 1: Configure SAS Data Sets Connectivity for ChatGPT

Connectivity to SAS Data Sets from ChatGPT is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with SAS Data Sets data from ChatGPT, we start by creating and configuring a SAS Data Sets connection in CData Connect AI.

  1. Log into your Connect AI account, click Sources, and then click Add Connection.
  2. Adding a Connection
  3. Select "SAS Data Sets" from the Add Connection panel.
  4. Selecting a data source
  5. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAS Data Sets.

    Set the following connection properties to connect to your SAS DataSet files:

    Connecting to Local Files

    • Set the Connection Type to "Local." Local files support SELECT, INSERT, and DELETE commands.
    • Set the URI to a folder containing SAS files, e.g. C:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\.

    Connecting to Cloud-Hosted SAS DataSet Files

    While the driver is capable of pulling data from SAS DataSet files hosted on a variety of cloud data stores, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported outside of local files in this driver.

    Set the Connection Type to the service hosting your SAS DataSet files. A unique prefix at the beginning of the URI connection property is used to identify the cloud data store and the remainder of the path is a relative path to the desired folder (one table per file) or single file (a single table). For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

    Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  6. Click Save & Test

With the connection configured, we are ready to connect to SAS Data Sets data from ChatGPT.

Step 2: Connect ChatGPT to CData Connect AI

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect AI connection in ChatGPT:

  1. Sign in to ChatGPT with a Plus or Pro subscription.
  2. Navigate to Apps from the left panel.
  3. Select the CData Connect AI app from the list.
  4. . Search for CData Connect AI
  5. Click Connect to authenticate to your Connect AI account.
  6. Click Connect to authenticate
  7. Click Sign in with CData Connect AI to add Connect AI to your ChatGPT account.
  8. Sign in with CData Connect AI
  9. After successful authorization, you will be redirected back to ChatGPT.
  10. Click Start Chat to start a new conversation in ChatGPT with Connect AI connected at the background.
  11. Start Chat

Step 3: Explore Live SAS Data Sets Data with ChatGPT

  1. Start a new conversation in ChatGPT.
  2. Connect AI should ideally be automatically enabled in the chat. If not, navigate to -> More -> CData Connect AI, under the chatbox, to enable the connector from the dropdown
  3. Enable CData Connect AI in the chat
  4. You can now start exploring your data with natural language prompts. ChatGPT will use the Connect AI MCP server to query your live SAS Data Sets data. Example prompts:
    • "Show me all customers from the last 30 days"
    • "What are my top performing products?"
    • "Analyze sales trends for this quarter"
    • "List all active projects and their current status"
    Refer to CData prompt library for more prompt ideas.
  5. Using natural language to explore your SAS Data Sets data (Salesforce used here).
  6. Permit ChatGPT to access your SAS Data Sets data. Click Query Data to continue, or Deny to refuse.
  7. Give permissions to ChatGPT.
  8. ChatGPT translates your natural language queries into SQL and execute them against your SAS Data Sets data through the Connect AI MCP server.
  9. ChatGPT shows the desired results from your SAS Data Sets data based on the prompts

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