Claude and your CRM: connection checklist
Tick every box before the first write. From crmmeister.com, Ahmed Essam.
1. Choose the route
- Questions and quick lookups in chat: the CRM's official MCP connector
- Repeatable jobs, big exports, bulk changes: the API with a key, in a script
- Checked the vendor's MCP page: read only or read and write, which plan
2. Keys and access
- Analysis runs on a read-only or tightly scoped key or user
- Admin key only for builds, only for the time of the build
- Keys live in an environment file, never in chat, code or screenshots
- Pasted a key by mistake? Rotate it the same day
3. Before the first query
- Asked "which account is this connection logged into?"
- Listed every tool that can create, update or delete
- Pulled 3 raw records and read the real field names
- Filtered count is smaller than the total, and 3 hits really match
4. Before comparing numbers
- Same field, same meaning in both systems (2 raw records each)
- Edge cases checked: unanswered calls, lost deals, imported records
- Every number comes with the query that produced it
5. Before a bulk write
- Dry run: count in scope plus a before/after table
- Undo file saved with every record's current value
- Your own "go" given after reading the dry run
- Automations and webhooks that react to this field: paused or understood
6. After the write
- Every record read back: changed, unchanged, errors
- A "success" answer with no change counts as a failure
- Nothing outside the scope changed
- Undo tested on 1 record while it is still cheap