MCP Servers in SheetXAI — Connect External Tools to Your Spreadsheet | SheetXAI Help Center

Overview

MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers let you connect external tools — CRMs, databases, project management apps, and more — directly to SheetXAI. Once connected, the AI can pull data from your tools into your spreadsheet and push data from your spreadsheet back to your tools, all through natural language.

Go to Settings → MCP Servers, add a server, and the AI automatically discovers the tools it provides.

Key Information

What You Can Do

Pull data in — "Get all my Notion databases", "Show my Stripe invoices from last month", "List all open Jira tickets"
Push data out — "Insert these contacts into my CRM", "Create Linear issues from these rows", "Add these leads to HubSpot"
Bulk operations — Push hundreds of rows at once with filtering, batching, and rate limiting
Chain with other features — Use MCP data with SAI agents, formulas, and all other SheetXAI features

Supported Platforms

MCP servers work on both Google Sheets and Excel.

Credits

Each MCP server you connect adds tool definitions to every message, which increases per-message credit usage. You can disable servers you're not actively using to reduce costs (see Disable/Enable Servers below).

Credits are only charged on success — failed MCP tool calls do not cost credits.

Popular Connectors — One-Click Setup

The MCP Servers settings page features a Popular Connectors grid with pre-configured servers you can add in one click:

Connector	Auth Method	Notes
Notion	OAuth (automatic)	Databases, pages, content
Stripe	OAuth (automatic)	Customers, invoices, subscriptions, payments
Supabase	OAuth (automatic)	Database tables, rows, queries
Atlassian (Jira/Confluence)	OAuth (automatic)	Issues, projects, pages
Linear	OAuth (automatic)	Issues, projects, cycles
HubSpot	OAuth (registered app)	Contacts, deals, companies — setup guide
Asana	OAuth (registered app)	Tasks, projects, team workloads — setup guide
GitHub	API key	Repos, issues, pull requests — paste your Personal Access Token
Zapier	OAuth (automatic)	Trigger automations, connect to 6,000+ apps
Exa Search	API key	AI-powered web search and scraping
GoHighLevel	API key	Contacts, conversations, opportunities, payments, calendars — use your Private Integration Token

Connectors you've already added appear grayed out so you don't add duplicates.

How to Add an MCP Server

Adding a Popular Connector

Open Settings → MCP Servers
Scroll to the Popular Connectors section
Click the connector you want
OAuth connectors (Notion, Stripe, Supabase, Atlassian, Linear): An authorization window opens — sign in, grant access, and you're done
API key connectors (GitHub, Exa, GoHighLevel): The URL is pre-filled — paste your API key and click Save

Adding a Custom Server

Open Settings → MCP Servers
Click Add Server
Enter your server's URL (must support Streamable HTTP transport)
Optionally add an API key
Optionally add Custom Headers if your server requires them (e.g., X-Location-Id, X-Workspace) — one header per line in Name: value format
Click Test Connection to verify it works
Click Save

The AI automatically discovers all tools the server provides.

Finding Your MCP Server URL

Many providers now offer MCP server URLs. You'll usually find them in the provider's docs or settings. They typically show a JSON config like this:

{
  "servers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/"
    }
  }
}

or this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "composio": {
      "url": "https://mcp.composio.dev/composio/some-key-here"
    }
  }
}

or this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "stripe": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.stripe.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

What SheetXAI needs from this: just the URL and (if required) the API key. You don't need to paste the full JSON — just copy the URL value and enter it in the Add Server form.

What the provider shows	What you enter in SheetXAI
`"url": "https://mcp.apify.com/"`	URL: `https://mcp.apify.com/`
`"url": "https://mcp.composio.dev/composio/abc123"`	URL: `https://mcp.composio.dev/composio/abc123`
`"url": "https://mcp.stripe.com"` + `"Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_..."`	URL: `https://mcp.stripe.com` API Key: `sk_live_...`

If the provider's config includes headers, enter the API key or token in the API Key field, and any extra headers (like X-Location-Id) in the Custom Headers field.

Managing Your Servers

Tool Visibility & Toggles

After connecting a server, you can see all the tools it provides on its settings card. Each tool has a toggle:

Enabled — The AI can see and use this tool
Disabled — The tool is hidden from the AI and won't be used

Click Refresh Tools on any server card to re-fetch the latest tool list if the server adds or removes tools.

Disable/Enable Servers

Each server card has a Disable/Enable button. Disabled servers are visually dimmed and completely skipped — their tools aren't sent to the AI and won't cost credits.

Use this to temporarily turn off servers you don't need without losing your configuration.

Re-Authenticate

OAuth server cards have a Re-authenticate button. This triggers a fresh OAuth flow without needing to remove and re-add the server — useful if your token expired or you need to switch accounts.

Smart Data Handling

Large Results

When an MCP tool returns a large dataset (e.g., hundreds of CRM contacts), the AI doesn't dump everything into the chat. Instead, it:

Shows you a summary of the data structure
Asks which columns you want
Writes the full data directly to your spreadsheet as a clean table

Bulk Writes

You can tell the AI to push spreadsheet data to an MCP tool in bulk:

"Insert all these contacts into my database"
"Send these leads to my CRM"
"Create Jira issues from these rows"

The AI builds a template, shows you a preview, and after your confirmation sends all rows. Bulk writes support:

Filtering — "only send rows where Status is pending"
Batching — split into smaller groups if the API has limits
Rate limiting — delay between requests
Per-row mode — for tools that only accept one item at a time

Use Cases & Examples

Pull CRM Data Into Your Sheet

"Get all my HubSpot contacts and put them in a new sheet"

The AI calls HubSpot via MCP, gets your contacts, asks which fields you want, and writes them to your spreadsheet.

Push Rows to a Project Management Tool

"Create a Linear issue for each row in this sheet"

The AI reads your spreadsheet data, builds the request template, and creates issues in bulk.

Query a Database

"Show me all users from my Supabase database where signup_date is this month"

The AI queries your Supabase database and writes the results to your sheet.

Sync Data Between Tools

"Take these Stripe invoices and create corresponding entries in my Notion database"

The AI pulls from one MCP tool and pushes to another, all in one conversation.

Automate with Zapier

"Trigger my Zapier workflow for each row in this sheet"

The AI sends each row to your Zapier automation, with batching and rate limiting.

Troubleshooting

"Connection failed" when testing

Verify the server URL is correct and the server is running
Make sure the server supports Streamable HTTP transport
Check that your API key is valid
If the server requires custom headers, make sure they're formatted correctly (Name: value, one per line)

Tools not showing up

Click Refresh Tools on the server card
Check that the server is not disabled
Verify the server is responding correctly by testing the connection

OAuth authorization fails

Try clicking Re-authenticate to start a fresh OAuth flow
Make sure you're granting the correct permissions when authorizing
For HubSpot and Asana: ensure you've set up a registered OAuth app first

High credit usage

Disable servers you're not actively using — each connected server adds to per-message credit costs
Disable individual tools you don't need within a server

MCP Servers in SheetXAI — Connect External Tools to Your Spreadsheet