Use Grok to Talk to Your NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Data via CData Connect AI
Grok AI is a large language model developed by xAI for real-time reasoning, tool invocation, and agentic workflows. It enables developers to build AI agents that can reason over live data, discover tools dynamically, and take intelligent actions.
CData Connect AI provides a secure cloud-to-cloud interface for integrating hundreds of enterprise data sources with Grok AI. Using Connect AI, live NetSuite SuiteAnalytics data is exposed through a remote MCP endpoint without replication, allowing Grok AI agents to securely query and analyze governed enterprise data in real time.
Step 1: Configure NetSuite SuiteAnalytics in CData Connect AI
To enable Grok to query live NetSuite SuiteAnalytics data, first create a NetSuite SuiteAnalytics connection in CData Connect AI. This connection is exposed through the CData Remote MCP Server.
-
Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection.
-
Select "NetSuite SuiteAnalytics" from the Add Connection panel.
-
Enter the required authentication properties.
Prerequisites
Before you can connect to NetSuite SuiteAnalytics, you must set up SuiteAnalytics Connect in your NetSuite account:
-
Enable the Connect Service feature.
-
Ensure that your Account Administrator has enabled your Account and Role with the Connect Service feature.
-
Navigate to Setup > Company > Enable Features.
-
Click the Analytics tab and check the SuiteAnalytics Connect box.
-
-
Add the SuiteAnalytics Connect permission to an existing Role, and note the Role ID for later.
-
Find the Settings portlet on your home page and click Set Up SuiteAnalytics Connect, then click Your Configuration to view your service host and account ID. These settings map directly to the Server and Account Id properties.
Add the NetSuite SuiteAnalytics Connection
-
Open the Sources page of the Connect Cloud dashboard.
-
Click Add Connection and select NetSuite SuiteAnalytics from the list of connectors.
-
Enter a Connection Name of your choice.
Authenticate to NetSuite SuiteAnalytics
Set the following required properties:
Server: The Service Host value you found when setting up SuiteAnalytics Connect.
Account Id: The Account ID value you found when setting up SuiteAnalytics Connect.
Role Id: The internal ID of the login role you granted the SuiteAnalytics Connect permission.
Next, choose one of the supported authentication methods:
Basic authentication
User: The username you use to authenticate to your NetSuite account.
Password: The password associated with that account.
Token-based authentication
Consumer Key and Consumer Secret: Generated when you create your integration record in NetSuite.
Token Key and Token Secret: The access token and secret generated for that integration.
After you enter your credentials, click Save & Test to validate the connection.
Click Create & Test.
-
-
Open the Permissions tab and configure user access.
Add a Personal Access Token
A Personal Access Token (PAT) authenticates MCP requests from Agno to CData Connect AI.
- Open Settings and navigate to Access Tokens.
- Click Create PAT.
-
Save the generated token securely.
Step 2: Install required dependencies
Remote MCP Tools allow Grok to connect to external MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, extending its capabilities with custom tools from third parties or your own implementations. Simply specify a server URL and optional configuration xAI manages the MCP server connection and interaction on your behalf.
Open the terminal and install the required dependencies for the MCP integration using pip.
pip install xai-sdk==1.4.0
The xai-sdk (v1.4.0) enables Remote MCP tools, and python-dotenv is used to securely load environment variables.
pip install python-dotenv
Step 3: Generate an xAI API key
- Create or login to xAI account
- Open xAI API console
- Navigate to API Keys
- Click on create API key
After generating an API key, user need to save it somewhere safe. Recommended option is to export it as an environment variable in your terminal or save it to a .env file.
Step 4: Connect to CData Connect AI
Initialize the Grok client and configure the MCP connection to CData Connect AI. The code below establishes a secure connection and sends a natural language query to your data source.
import os
from xai_sdk import Client
from xai_sdk.chat import user
from xai_sdk.tools import mcp
client = Client(api_key="Your_xAI-API_KEY")
chat = client.chat.create(
model="grok-4-1-fast-non-reasoning",
tools=[
mcp(
server_url="https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp",
extra_headers={"Authorization": "Basic Username:PAT"} #Base64 Encoded Username:PAT
)
],
include=["verbose_streaming"],
)
chat.append(user("List the top two catalogs for me please"))
is_thinking = True
for response, chunk in chat.stream():
# View the server-side tool calls as they are being made in real-time
for tool_call in chunk.tool_calls:
print(f"
Calling tool: {tool_call.function.name} with arguments: {tool_call.function.arguments}")
if response.usage.reasoning_tokens and is_thinking:
print(f"
Thinking... ({response.usage.reasoning_tokens} tokens)", end="", flush=True)
if chunk.content and is_thinking:
print("
Final Response:")
is_thinking = False
if chunk.content and not is_thinking:
print(chunk.content, end="", flush=True)
print("
Usage:")
print(response.usage)
print(response.server_side_tool_usage)
print("
Server Side Tool Calls:")
print(response.tool_calls)
This code initializes the Grok AI client, connects to CData Connect AI via MCP using Basic Authentication, and streams the response in real-time. The agent automatically discovers available tools, invokes them to query your live data, and displays both the tool calls and final results.
Run the script to see Grok query your connected data source.
Query Results
The output shows Grok invoking MCP tools through CData Connect AI and returning live data from your connected source.
User can now query live data using natural language through Grok AI.
Build agentic workflows with Grok and CData Connect AI
Combining Grok AI with CData Connect AI delivers AI-powered data access without pipelines or custom integrations. Start your free trial today to see how CData can empower Grok with live, secure access to hundreds of external systems.