A connection is one authorization between CorpusIQ and one system you already run your business on. The work is small: pick the tool, authorize it once, confirm a number, move on. What matters is knowing which tool to pick, what the authorization does and does not allow, and what to do on the day it stops working.
What read-only means, precisely
External retrieval is read-only. When the assistant reads your orders, invoices, campaigns or messages, it reads. It cannot change, delete or send anything in the connected system through a retrieval path.
Configuration controls are a separate surface. A small number of settings changes, such as enabling or disabling a connector or resetting a token, write scoped platform state. That is configuration, not your business data, and it does not let an assistant edit the records inside the tool you connected.
If a vendor asks you to grant write access to your accounting or commerce system so an AI can read it, that request is worth questioning. Read access is enough to answer the questions this product exists to answer.
One connection per family, not per product
Several products usually sit behind one sign-in. Authorize the family once and every product inside it becomes available to the assistant.
The Google family is the widest: Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Sheets, Analytics, Search Console and Google Ads share one authorization. The Meta family covers Facebook Pages, Instagram and Meta Ads. The Microsoft family covers Outlook, OneDrive and Teams.
Beyond the families, 40+ connectors cover accounting, commerce, CRM, advertising, support, project and payment systems. Authorize the ones your questions actually touch.
The connection sequence
Open the dashboard, go to Connectors, and choose the tool. You land on the provider's own sign-in and consent screen, not a CorpusIQ password form. Sign in with the account that holds the data you want read. Approve the read scopes.
You come back to the dashboard with the connector showing connected. Ask one question whose answer you already know. If it matches, the connection is healthy and you can stop worrying about it.
Name the account if you have more than one. A business with two QuickBooks files or three ad accounts gets the wrong number when nobody says which one. State it in the question: "in the US Shopify store" or "in the ad account ending 4471".
Common questions
Why did a connection stop working?
Usually because the provider expired the authorization, someone changed the account password, or an administrator revoked access at the provider level. Reconnect the same tool from the same dashboard. Your questions, saved views and history are unaffected because the data was never copied out of the source.
Can I connect more than one account per tool?
Yes. Each connection authorizes independently, so two stores, two ad accounts or two sets of books can be connected side by side. Name the account in the question when more than one is connected, otherwise the assistant picks the default and you get a defensible but wrong answer.
Do you receive a copy of my data to hold?
Direct MCP does not retain raw customer files or full connector response payloads. Operational logs may persist for up to 30 days. CorpusIQ does not train models on customer data. Optional indexed search keeps embeddings and minimal metadata only, until the connector is revoked or the account is deleted.
Who inside my company can see a connected tool?
Connections are scoped to the account that authorized them. Team members see what their own role allows, and an administrator controls who is on the account at all. If you need a tool visible to one team and not another, keep the connections under separate accounts rather than sharing one.
How do I disconnect a tool?
Disable the connector from the dashboard and revoke access at the provider as well if you want certainty. Both directions work independently: disabling in CorpusIQ stops the assistant from reading, and revoking at the provider invalidates the token.
Does connecting a tool cost extra?
No. Every connector is included in the plan price. There is no per-connector charge and no separate tier for connectors, so the decision to connect a tool is a question about whether it answers something for you, not about budget.
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