How to Query Live Anaplan Data in Claude Desktop

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an emerging, open-source standard for connecting LLMs with external services and data sources. Through MCP Servers, AI clients can perform actions like opening Jira tickets, posting Slack messages, committing GitHub branches and more. With CData MCP Server, these capabilities expand exponentially.

CData MCP Server provides schema-aware context to AI tools — whether you're using it for AI-assisted code generation in IDEs like Cursor, or for querying live data through chat interfaces like Claude Desktop.

In this article, we guide the reader through installing CData MCP Server for Anaplan, configuring the connection to Anaplan, and asking questions of the data in Claude Desktop.

Prerequisites

You need to download Claude Desktop (download) and create an account before continuing.

Overview

Here's a quick overview of the steps:

1. Download and install the CData MCP Server for Anaplan
2. Configure the connection to Anaplan
3. Ask questions about the data in Claude Desktop

Step 1: Download and install CData MCP Server

1. To begin, navigate to https://www.cdata.com/solutions/codeassist/ and download the CData MCP Server for Anaplan. 👁 Downloading the CData MCP Server installer
   
2. Find and double-click the installer to begin the installation. 👁 Running the installer for CData MCP Server (Google Sheets is shown.)
   
3. Follow the prompts to complete the installation. 👁 Completing the CData MCP Server installation (Google Sheets is shown).
   

When the installation is complete, you are ready to configure MCP Server by connecting to Anaplan.

Step 2: Configure the connection to Anaplan

1. After installation, the MCP Server configuration wizard should open automatically. 👁 The MCP Server configuration wizard.
   

   NOTE: If the wizard does not open automatically, search for "CData MCP Server" in the Windows search bar and double-click the application. 👁 Opening the MCP Server configuration wizard (Google Sheets is shown).
   

2. Click the dropdown menu in MCP Configuration > Configuration Name and select "
3. Name the configuration (e.g. "cdataanaplan") and click "OK."

   NOTE: This name is used as the name for the MCP server and as the prefix for all of the MCP Server's tools.

   👁 Naming the configuration.
   

4. Connecting to Anaplan

   Authenticating to Anaplan

   The driver supports authenticating with Basic, Certificate, or OAuth. In every case, set Region to the region where your Anaplan account data is hosted (e.g., , which is the default).

   Using Basic Authentication

   Set AuthScheme to , then supply your Anaplan User and Password. If your workspace uses single sign-on (SSO), you must be assigned as an Exception User to use Basic authentication.

   Using Certificate Authentication

   Set AuthScheme to , then supply the Certificate, CertificateType, and PrivateKey properties (and the matching CertificatePassword / PrivateKeyPassword if either is encrypted). The certificate must be a CA-issued X.509 certificate registered with your Anaplan tenant administrator.

   Using OAuth Authentication

   Register a custom OAuth application in Anaplan, then set the following properties:

   • OAuthClientId: The client Id assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
   • OAuthClientSecret: The client secret assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
   • CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your application.
   • InitiateOAuth: Set to to have the driver manage the OAuth token exchange and refresh automatically.

   See the Getting Started chapter of the help documentation for a guide to creating a custom OAuth app and using OAuth.

   Enter the appropriate connection properties in the configuration wizard.

   👁 Configuring the Server to connect with a specific Spreadsheet.
   
5. Click "Connect" to authenticate with Anaplan through OAuth. 👁 Authenticating with Google
   

   NOTE: The configuration wizard should open your browser and ask you to sign into Anaplan. If your browser does not open, close the configuration wizard and re-open the application using "Run as Administrator" (see below).

   👁 Running the configuration wizard with elevated permissions.
   
6. Finally, click "Save Configuration" to save the configuration. 👁 Saving the MCP Server configuration.
   

   NOTE: This saves the configuration details to a separate file and updates the Claude Desktop configuration file (claude_desktop_config.json) to start MCP Server when the Claude Desktop client starts.

With MCP Server configured, you are ready to start asking questions of your live data from Claude.

Step 3: Ask AI for answers from live Anaplan data

Now that we have installed MCP Server and configured a connection, we are ready to start with Anaplan data in Claude Desktop.

1. Open Claude Desktop. It may take a moment for MCP Server to start, but you will see the list of servers and tools available in the Claude interface (look for the settings icon below the prompt bar). 👁 The MCP servers menu showing available connections in Claude Desktop
   

   You can individually enable and disable specific tools by clicking on the server name. 👁 The expanded tool list for MCP Server in Claude Desktop
   

2. Now that you have connected, you can ask Claude questions about the Anaplan data. For example: "Can you give me a quantitative analysis about my closed-won opportunities by industry?"

   NOTE: Claude may need to explore the Anaplan data to make sense of it before it can begin answering questions of the data. The tabular model presented by CData alongside the database tools available simplify the data exploration and analysis for an LLM.

   👁 Claude Desktop displaying a quantitative analysis of live data
   

Build with MCP Server. Deploy with CData Drivers.

Download CData MCP Server for Anaplan for free and give your AI tools schema-aware access to live Anaplan data during development. When you're ready to move to production, CData Anaplan Drivers deliver the same SQL-based access with enterprise-grade performance, security, and reliability.

Visit the CData Community to share insights, ask questions, and explore what's possible with MCP-powered AI workflows.