Connect an AI assistant

What it can read

Reports: every report in PointLit's list of reports, and the X and Z reports of a shift. Products: prices and their history, stock at each location, transfers between locations, and a product search. Sales and customers: bills, customer statements and loyalty points. Purchasing and suppliers: your suppliers, their statements and the deliveries you received from them. It reads them the way you would: only what your own role allows, only at the locations you work at, and checked again every time it asks. If your role hides costs, other staff members' names, customer details or stock at other locations, the assistant does not see them either.

What it cannot do

It cannot ring up a sale, refund or void a bill, change a price, adjust or transfer stock, receive a delivery, record a payment, or add or edit a customer or supplier. This is not a setting that could be left switched on by mistake: PointLit refuses every change that arrives through this connection, whatever the assistant asks for, and every PointLit tool the assistant sees describes itself as read-only. If you ask it to make a change, it should tell you it cannot and send you to the PointLit app, where you make the change yourself. An assistant can still misread a figure or add numbers up wrongly, so check anything you will act on in PointLit itself.

Who can connect

Anyone whose role includes the permission ai:connect, which the Roles screen lists in the AI assistants group as Connect this business to an AI assistant (read-only). As standard only the Owner role has it, and the Owner can add it to any other role. Each person connects with their own PointLit account. If someone loses the permission, their connections stop answering at once, and giving it back makes them work again. The other permission in that group, ai:manage, described as See and disconnect everyone's AI connections and read their activity, lets a person see every connection in the business, read what each one asked, and disconnect any of them. As standard it too is on the Owner role only.

Your connector address

Every business has its own connector address: your shop's web address followed by a fixed path. For a shop whose workspace name is your-shop, it is:

https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp

If your business uses its own domain and PointLit has verified it, the same address works on that domain too. You do not have to work it out: the AI connections screen in PointLit shows your exact address, with a Copy button on the web, and on your phone as text you can press and hold to copy or share.

Connect your assistant

Pick your assistant below. The menus named here are the ones each app showed when this article was written; app makers move them from time to time, so if one has moved, look for the same words nearby. Whichever app you use, the last step is the same: a PointLit page opens and you approve the connection there.

https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp

https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp

https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp

https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp

claude mcp add --transport http pointlit https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pointlit": {
      "url": "https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

{
  "servers": {
    "pointlit": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

npx mcp-remote https://your-shop.pointlit.app/api/mcp

Approving the connection

Whichever assistant you use, the connection is made on a PointLit page, and nothing is connected until you approve it there.

1. Your assistant opens a PointLit page in your browser. If PointLit asks you to sign in, sign in as yourself. The page shows who you are signed in as; if that is not you, select Sign out and stop.
2. Check who is asking. The page names the app, but any app can call itself Claude, so the name is marked unverified. Beside it PointLit shows where the connection will send you back to, such as claude.ai, and that is the part to check.
3. Untick anything you do not want the assistant to read. It can never read more than your own role allows, whatever you leave ticked.
4. Enter the code from your authenticator app. If you have not set one up, enter your PointLit password instead.
5. Select Approve. To refuse the connection, select Deny.
6. PointLit sends you an email for every new connection. If you receive one you did not expect, disconnect that connection straight away from the AI connections screen.

Ready-made questions

PointLit offers a few ready-made questions. Assistants that support them list them in their own menu; in any assistant you can also simply ask in your own words.

• Summarise yesterday: how the day's trading went.
• What is running low at my shop.
• My best customers this month.
• This week compared with last week.
• What I owe my suppliers, and when it is due.
• What can you do with PointLit? The assistant explains what it can read.

What PointLit records, and who can see it

Every question an assistant asks PointLit is recorded for 30 days: which kind of question it was, when, how long it took and how many rows came back, with any words you searched for hidden. The answers themselves, your figures, names and prices, are never recorded.

You can read the record of your own connections on the AI connections screen, and so can the people in your business who have permission to administer AI connections.

What you ask your assistant, and what PointLit sends back, is also handled by the company that runs your assistant, under its own terms.

Other tools connected to the same assistant can see what PointLit returns.

So connect PointLit only on an assistant account that you alone use, and keep in mind which other tools are connected to it.

You can disconnect any connection at any time from the AI connections screen, in PointLit on the web or on your phone: select Disconnect, and it stops working at its next question. A connection that is not used for 90 days is disconnected on its own, and changing or resetting your password disconnects every connection you made.

Download links

One answer holds at most 100 rows. For more, the assistant gives you a link to download the complete report. The link works for 24 hours, but only in a browser where you are signed in to PointLit as the same person who asked, and PointLit checks your permissions again when you open it. A link copied out of the conversation is of no use to anyone else.

Limits

So that one busy assistant cannot slow your shop down, each connection works within these limits. They are PointLit's standard settings. Each thing the assistant looks up in PointLit counts once, and one question of yours can take several.

• Look-ups per minute, for each connection: 60
• Look-ups per day, for each connection: 1,000
• Look-ups per day, for each person, across all their connections: 2,000
• Reports running at the same time, for each connection: 2
• Reports running at the same time, for the whole business: 4
• Longest a report waits for its turn, in seconds: 20
• Longest a report may run, in seconds: 15
• Most rows in one answer: 100

A report asked for while others are running waits for its turn, and a report that still finds no room is refused without counting toward the day's look-ups. A report that runs too long is stopped; ask for a shorter period or fewer locations. When a limit is reached the assistant is told to wait, and the next minute, or the next day, starts afresh.

If something goes wrong

The assistant says it is not authorised, or asks you to connect again.

Connect again from your assistant and approve the new connection. This happens after a connection is disconnected, after your password is changed or reset, and after 90 days without use.

The PointLit page says the request has expired, or was opened in another browser.

Go back to your assistant and connect again, then approve within 10 minutes, in the browser the assistant opened.

ChatGPT says PointLit's tools are not available in the chat, or answers without asking PointLit.

In ChatGPT, open Plugins, open PointLit and select Refresh, or Connect if it asks you to, and approve the PointLit page that opens. Then start a new chat and type @ to choose PointLit.

Your authenticator code is refused.

A code you have just used to sign in cannot be used a second time. Wait for the next code and enter that.

A download link says it is not available to the account you are signed in with.

Sign in to PointLit in that browser as the person who asked the question, then open the link again.

The assistant asks which location you mean, or finds nothing at a location.

If your role covers only some locations, name the location in your question. The assistant can only see the locations you work at.

The assistant says it cannot make a change you asked for.

That is expected: the connection is read-only. Make the change in the PointLit app.

The assistant says it has reached a limit.

Wait a minute and ask again. If the daily limit was reached, it starts afresh the next day.

A small local model gives confused answers.

PointLit offers 30 tools, which is a lot for a small model to choose from. Start from one of the ready-made questions, or use a larger model.

Two risks to know about

• Only approve a connection you have just started yourself. If someone sends you a link to a PointLit approval page, do not approve it: it could connect their assistant to your business.
• Text your staff typed into PointLit, such as product names, notes and customer names, reaches the assistant as it is. PointLit tells the assistant to treat that text as information and never as instructions, but a cleverly written note could still mislead an assistant, so be wary of an answer that asks you to do something unusual.