# Claude for Manufacturing: Setup and the Microsoft 365 Connector

> Anthropic's Claude for Manufacturing plugin (November 12, 2026) drafts quotes, quality reports and supplier requests. Setup on Team and Enterprise, the Microsoft 365 connector, security checks and limits.

Source: https://www.epifive.com/blog/claude-for-manufacturing-microsoft-365-setup · Published 2026-11-14 · EpiFive

## Key takeaways

- Anthropic launched Claude for Manufacturing on November 12, 2026, as a plugin with 17 skills and four connectors (Autodesk Fusion, Infor, Microsoft 365, Oracle NetSuite).
- The plugin drafts quotes, nonconformance and 8D reports, production reports and supplier requests, and a person reviews and approves every output before it goes out.
- It does not operate equipment or write to systems of record; the Model Hardware Standard for equipment is a separate research preview.
- The Microsoft 365 connector uses delegated permissions only, needs one tenant-wide Entra admin consent, and searches SharePoint tenant-wide with each user's own permissions.
- Anthropic has published no separate price and named no customers; the plugin is available on Claude Team and Enterprise plans.

Anthropic launched **Claude for Manufacturing** on November 12, 2026: a plugin for Claude with 17 skills and four connectors (Autodesk Fusion, Infor, Microsoft 365 and Oracle NetSuite) that drafts quotes, quality reports and supplier requests from a plant's own records. It is available on Claude Team and Enterprise plans; you install the plugin, then tell Claude "Set us up," and a person approves every draft before it reaches a customer or supplier.

This guide is for IT admins and Microsoft 365 administrators at small and mid-sized manufacturers who have been asked to "turn on the Claude manufacturing thing." It covers what Anthropic has actually documented: what the plugin does, who it fits, the setup steps, what you need to prepare in Microsoft Entra ID and SharePoint for the Microsoft 365 connector, security questions to settle before rollout, the limits, and a factual comparison with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Where Anthropic hasn't published a detail, this guide says so instead of guessing.

## What Claude for Manufacturing is

Claude for Manufacturing is a plugin, not a separate app or a new model. A plugin bundles skills (written instructions for specific tasks) and connectors (links to business systems) so Claude can carry out a workflow inside the Claude apps your users already have. Anthropic describes the scope as everything "from pricing a new job to diagnosing a stopped machine."

The 17 skills span sales, quality, operations, supply chain, design and setup. Some do one task; others chain several steps and stop when a person needs to review. Anthropic's announcement and product page describe these workflows:

| Workflow | What Claude does | Who signs off |
|---|---|---|
| Quoting a new job | Reads the customer's request, flags missing information and drawing gaps, compares costs on similar past jobs and drafts the quote | The estimator releases the quote |
| Failed inspection to 8D | Documents the failure, searches earlier nonconformance reports (NCRs) for the same issue, ranks likely causes and drafts the corrective action report (8D) | The quality engineer verifies the fix |
| Machine down | Reviews sensor exports, repair notes, photos and the OEM manual and ranks probable causes | The technician decides what to check |
| Sourcing from another supplier | Prepares the request for quotes and compares the bids that come back | The buyer |
| Comparing designs in Autodesk Fusion | Creates variations of an existing model, scores them against the engineer's targets and drafts a decision memo | The engineer |
| Morning production report | Combines output versus target, downtime and the cost of downtime and missed output into one report | The plant manager |

**The full list of 17 skill names is not published** on the announcement, the product page or the Manufacturing Dive report we read. The plugin's directory listing on claude.ai requires a Claude sign-in, so we could not check it. Anthropic says the skills are starting templates that you can customize to your own forms, and that it will add more skills over time.

The four connectors do different jobs:

- **Autodesk Fusion**: generates design variations so engineers can evaluate more options.
- **Infor**: lets buyers and planners look up purchase orders and stock. This connector only reads records. Infor is releasing its own "Infor in Claude" plugin that can also make changes in Infor after a person approves, and Anthropic says "Claude's access follows the buyer's Infor permissions."
- **Microsoft 365**: finds procedures, supplier emails and exported reports in shared folders and inboxes.
- **Oracle NetSuite**: pulls orders, inventory, production steps and job costs for quote pricing.

For systems without a connector (an older ERP, a quality system or an MES), Anthropic's answer is simple: save regular exports from those systems to Microsoft 365, and Claude works from the files. That makes the Microsoft 365 connector the center of most small-plant deployments, and it is why the IT side of this rollout is mostly a Microsoft 365 project.

## Who it is for and availability

Anthropic's product page is direct about fit. The plugin "fits best where each job gets its own quote, drawing, and routing," with quality issues handled through NCRs and 8Ds, which describes a typical job shop or contract manufacturer. Asked whether it suits process manufacturers, Anthropic answers "Partly, today": food, consumer packaged goods, chemicals and steel producers can use the morning report, breakdown diagnosis and supplier skills right away, and can adapt the quoting and quality skills to batch records.

| Item | What Anthropic says |
|---|---|
| Launch date | November 12, 2026 |
| Plans | Claude Team or Enterprise (the product page FAQ says paid plans, including Enterprise bought through AWS Marketplace) |
| Price | No separate price published; the product page links only to general Claude pricing |
| Named customers | None named in the announcement |
| Roles it targets | Estimators, quality engineers, technicians, buyers, planners, engineers and plant managers |
| Webinar | Technical webinar on November 17, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. ET |

Anthropic's case for the product rests on one statistic it cites: in a 2025 Manufacturing Leadership Council survey, 79% of manufacturers said they enter data manually. Lauren Collett, Anthropic's enterprise go-to-market leader, told Manufacturing Dive the goal is to cut the "internal toil" of gathering information from different systems, while "making sure a person is signing off on every draft."

## Requirements

Before you start, confirm these on both the Claude side and the Microsoft side:

- **A Claude Team or Enterprise plan**, and an Owner or Primary Owner who can change organization settings. On Enterprise, a custom role that can manage the organization's libraries can also manage plugins. Anthropic's help center notes that the role labeled Admin in the members list does not include the plugins page.
- **Cowork and Skills turned on for the organization.** Anthropic's plugin management article says both must be enabled before you can use plugin marketplaces.
- **A Microsoft Entra Global Administrator** for the one-time tenant-wide consent of the Microsoft 365 connector. Users need work or school accounts in an Entra tenant with an active Microsoft 365 license.
- **Accounts for the other systems you plan to connect**: Oracle NetSuite, Infor or Autodesk Fusion, with the permissions each user should have. Anthropic says connectors typically respect each user's existing permissions.
- **A decision on where exports will live** in SharePoint or OneDrive if you have systems without a connector (see the Microsoft 365 section below).

## How to set up Claude for Manufacturing, step by step

Anthropic's announcement gives three steps, and its plugin and connector help articles fill in the admin side. Steps below come from those pages; menu names are quoted as Anthropic writes them.

### 1. Make the plugin available to your users (Claude owner)

1. Confirm Cowork and Skills are enabled for the organization.
2. Install the plugin from Anthropic's plugin directory. The announcement's "Install the plugin" link opens the Claude for Manufacturing page in the directory, and the product page FAQ says admins install it from there.
3. Choose who gets it in **Organization settings > Plugins & skills**. On the **Inventory** tab, open the plugin's row menu, choose **Default access** and pick an install preference: "Installed by default", "Available to install", "Required" or "Not available". Changes take effect on each member's next session or plugin refresh.
4. On Enterprise, you can target a group instead: row menu > **Group access…** > **Add groups** next to Install targeting. Groups can be created manually or synced from your identity provider through SCIM. If a person is in several groups, the most permissive setting wins, so Anthropic's advice for a limited pilot is to set the organization-wide preference to "Not available" and grant access only to the pilot group.

Members who were given "Available to install" find the plugin on the **Discover** tab in **Customize > Plugins**.

### 2. Add the connectors (Claude owner and Entra admin)

For the Microsoft 365 connector on Team and Enterprise, a Claude owner goes to **Organization settings > Connectors**, clicks **+ Add**, then **All available**, finds Microsoft 365 and clicks **Add to your team**. A Global Administrator then grants the tenant-wide consent described in the next section. The other three connectors are added and authorized for their own systems; Anthropic's manufacturing pages don't publish separate setup steps for them.

### 3. Tell Claude "Set us up"

Any user with access opens Claude and types "Set us up." According to Anthropic, Claude then asks which systems the team uses, tests the connectors and reports which skills can't fully run yet. Treat that report as your gap list: it tells you which exports you still need to schedule into Microsoft 365.

### 4. Start with one measured process

Anthropic's own guidance is that "one process is enough to start," with quoting or quality as the usual first choice. Pick one, record how long it takes today, and measure the same thing after a few weeks of drafts.

## Preparing the Microsoft 365 connector: what IT must do

This is where most of the IT work sits. Everything below comes from Anthropic's "Set up the Microsoft 365 connector" article and its "Microsoft 365 connector security guide" unless marked as our recommendation.

### Consent in Microsoft Entra ID

The connector uses **delegated permissions only**: it acts on behalf of the signed-in user through the OAuth 2.0 on-behalf-of flow, and app-only (service principal) access is not supported. A Global Administrator grants a one-time consent for the tenant in one of two ways:

1. **Through Claude**: a Global Admin with a Claude seat goes to **Customize > Connectors**, finds Microsoft 365, clicks **Connect**, chooses "Work or school account" if prompted, signs in and ticks the box to consent on behalf of the organization.
2. **Manually in Entra**: used when the Global Admin has no Claude account, or for troubleshooting. This adds two service principals, **M365 MCP Client for Claude** (app ID `08ad6f98-a4f8-4635-bb8d-f1a3044760f0`) and **M365 MCP Server for Claude** (app ID `07c030f6-5743-41b7-ba00-0a6e85f37c17`), and grants admin consent for each with the documented URL:

```text
https://login.microsoftonline.com/{your-tenant-id}/adminconsent?client_id=<appId>
```

After consent, other users in the tenant connect without seeing a consent prompt.

### Limit who can connect

In the Entra admin center, open the **M365 MCP Server for Claude** enterprise application, set **Assignment required?** to **Yes** under Properties, and add the permitted users or groups under **Users and groups**. Repeat for **M365 MCP Client for Claude**. Anthropic says both apps must be restricted to the same people. For a pilot, use one security group for both apps and for the Claude plugin group above.

### Least privilege: what the connector can read

By default the connector is read-only. The read scopes include `Mail.Read`, `Mail.Read.Shared`, `Calendars.Read`, Teams chat and channel read scopes, meeting transcript scopes, `Files.Read.All` and `Sites.Read.All`. Write scopes such as `Mail.Send`, `Files.ReadWrite.All` and `ChatMessage.Send` are used only if you enable write tools.

Three details matter for least privilege:

- **SharePoint search is tenant-wide.** Anthropic says restricting search to specific sites isn't supported and site-specific `.Selected` scopes aren't supported. The boundary is each user's own SharePoint permissions, so anything a user can open, Claude can find for them. If your tenant has broad "Everyone except external users" sharing, fix that first; our [Microsoft 365 Copilot oversharing readiness guide](https://www.epifive.com/blog/microsoft-365-copilot-readiness-oversharing) covers the same cleanup.
- **You can revoke individual scopes.** In Enterprise applications, open M365 MCP Server for Claude > **Permissions** > **Admin consent** tab, select a Microsoft Graph permission and choose **Revoke**. Revoking `Mail.Read` blocks Outlook, `Sites.Read.All` blocks SharePoint and `Chat.Read` blocks Teams chat. Tools that need a revoked scope fail with "Failed to call tool." Re-running admin consent restores the full default set, including write scopes, so revoke again afterwards.
- **Shared mailboxes are read-only, and the Online Archive is not searched.** Mailbox search covers the primary mailbox and shared mailboxes the user can access, but not the separate In-Place Archive.

### Write tools: keep drafts as drafts

If you enable write tools, each one can be set to **Always allow**, **Needs approval** or **Blocked** in **Organization settings > Connectors > Microsoft 365**. For a manufacturing pilot whose whole point is "a person approves before anything goes out," our recommendation is to leave sending tools (Outlook send and forward, Teams send, post and reply, calendar changes) on Needs approval or Blocked. Anthropic notes that sent emails carry an agent-attribution header, but file, calendar and Teams writes are not tagged, attachments are rejected, and calendar changes notify attendees automatically. For organizations that added the connector before November 9, 2026, 11 sending and calendar tools move to Needs approval on or after December 9, 2026, unless you set them otherwise.

### Where to keep the exports

Anthropic says only that teams can save regular exports to Microsoft 365. It doesn't prescribe a location. Our recommendation, based on how the connector's permissions work:

1. Create a dedicated SharePoint site (for example, `Plant Exports`) whose members are only the people in the pilot group, rather than dropping exports into a broad team site or someone's OneDrive.
2. Use file types the connector can read: Word, Excel, PowerPoint (including legacy formats), PDF, `.txt`, `.md` and `.csv`. OneNote and other formats can't be read.
3. Name exports by system, report and date (for example, `ERP_open-orders_2026-11-14.csv`) and keep one folder per source system, so Claude and reviewers can trace figures back to a file.
4. Apply a retention label or policy to the library so old exports don't pile up, and keep supplier pricing and customer drawings in sites with the narrowest membership.

One troubleshooting note from Anthropic: Claude adds `isDocument=true` to every SharePoint search, so files your index doesn't mark as documents are skipped silently. If an export never shows up in answers, compare the Graph `/search/query` results with and without that filter.

## Security and privacy questions to settle before rollout

Use this as a checklist with your security lead. The answers in brackets are what Anthropic's documentation says today.

1. **Does Claude see more than the user can?** [No. The connector mirrors each user's Microsoft 365 permissions and can't bypass SharePoint sharing or read other users' private mail or files.]
2. **Where is Microsoft 365 data stored?** [Anthropic says the connector works as a proxy, fetches content only during active queries and does not cache file content. However, tool results that are part of stored chats are retained in Claude.] Ask Anthropic how long chats are retained on your plan and how to export or delete them.
3. **Is our data used for training?** [Anthropic's privacy center says inputs and outputs from commercial products such as Claude for Work are not used for training by default, unless you send feedback (thumbs up or down) or otherwise opt in. Owners can turn off the **Rate chats** option under Organization settings > Data and Privacy.]
4. **What shows up in our audit logs?** [Every Graph call is recorded in your Microsoft 365 audit log with timestamp, user, operation and resource; Anthropic also logs authentication and tool-execution events.]
5. **Will Conditional Access break it?** [MFA and group assignment are supported. Device-compliance policies are checked against the device used to connect. Location and sign-in frequency policies are not supported, because later requests come from Anthropic's outbound IP addresses; the documented fix is a named location with Anthropic's IP ranges excluded from those policies, and Anthropic warns not to use that exclusion for device-compliance policies.] Test any change in report-only mode first; see our guide to [Conditional Access report-only mode](https://www.epifive.com/blog/conditional-access-report-only-mode-test-policies).
6. **What about sensitivity labels and encryption?** [Anthropic's security guide says delegated access respects Microsoft 365 DLP policies; we did not find a statement on files encrypted with sensitivity labels.] Test with a labelled file before you rely on it.
7. **How do we turn it off fast?** [Users can disconnect in Customize > Connectors, owners can disable the connector organization-wide, and admins can revoke permissions in Entra, which applies immediately.]
8. **What about the other three connectors?** Ask Anthropic and each vendor the same questions for NetSuite, Infor and Fusion; Anthropic's manufacturing pages say connectors "typically" respect each user's existing permissions.

## Limitations

- **It does not run machines.** Anthropic says the plugin doesn't operate equipment, doesn't run production control and doesn't write to systems of record. The **Model Hardware Standard**, a shared specification for AI agents to operate physical devices safely, is a limited research preview with research labs and advanced manufacturers, separate from the plugin.
- **The Infor connector only looks up records.** Changes in Infor need Infor's own plugin.
- **Process manufacturing is a partial fit** today, by Anthropic's own description.
- **No full skills list, no price and no named customers** were published at launch.
- **Exports are only as fresh as your schedule.** For systems without a connector, Claude works from the last file saved to Microsoft 365.
- **Drafts need review.** Anthropic's own demo of an 8D draft marks the root cause "not validated" and leaves owners and dates blank; that review step is the design, not a bug.
- **Microsoft 365 search can't be narrowed to specific sites,** as covered above.

## How it compares with Microsoft 365 Copilot

Many small manufacturers already pay for Microsoft 365, so the obvious question is whether Microsoft 365 Copilot does the same job. The differences below come only from Anthropic's and Microsoft's own documentation.

| | Claude for Manufacturing | Microsoft 365 Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Anthropic | Microsoft |
| Manufacturing workflows | Ships 17 manufacturing skills (quotes, NCR and 8D, production report, breakdown diagnosis, sourcing, design) | General assistant; you build manufacturing workflows with prompts or agents |
| ERP and CAD access | Built-in connectors for Oracle NetSuite, Infor (look-up) and Autodesk Fusion | Microsoft Graph connectors or agents, which you set up for each external system |
| How it reads Microsoft 365 | Delegated Microsoft Graph calls through Anthropic's connector, with each user's permissions | Microsoft Graph and the Semantic Index inside Microsoft 365, with each user's permissions |
| Where prompts and responses are stored | In Claude; tool results in stored chats are retained | Stored with your other Microsoft 365 content; retention and search through Microsoft Purview |
| Training on your data | Not by default for commercial plans, except feedback | Prompts, responses and Graph data aren't used to train foundation models |
| Encrypted (labelled) files | Not addressed in Anthropic's connector security guide | Microsoft says Copilot honors the usage rights granted to the user |
| Licensing | Claude Team or Enterprise; no separate plugin price | Paid per-user Copilot license on top of Microsoft 365 |

In short: Claude for Manufacturing arrives with manufacturing-specific workflows and ERP connectors, while Copilot keeps the data and the interaction history inside Microsoft 365 and its Purview tools. Some plants will run both. For Copilot pricing, see our [Microsoft 365 Copilot Business price guide](https://www.epifive.com/blog/microsoft-365-copilot-business-price-per-user-small-business-pilot).

## Rollout checklist

- Confirm a Team or Enterprise plan, an Owner, and that Cowork and Skills are on.
- Fix SharePoint oversharing before connecting Microsoft 365.
- Create one pilot security group; use it for plugin access and for **Assignment required** on both Entra enterprise apps.
- Grant the Global Admin consent and record the date.
- Decide which write tools stay Blocked or Needs approval.
- Create the exports site, schedule exports in readable formats, and add a retention policy.
- Run "Set us up" and work through the gap list it reports.
- Pick one process, measure it before and after, and review the Microsoft 365 audit log in the first week.

## What we checked

- Read Anthropic's announcement "Introducing Claude for Manufacturing" on claude.com on 2026-11-14 and confirmed the date (November 12, 2026), 17 skills, the four connectors, the exports-to-Microsoft-365 advice, the Team or Enterprise availability, the "Set us up" step and the November 17, 11:00 a.m. ET webinar.
- Cross-checked the connectors, the human sign-off and "doesn't operate equipment" against the Claude for Manufacturing product page and Manufacturing Dive's November 12 report; the product page also supplied the "Partly, today" answer for process manufacturers.
- Looked for a published list of the 17 skill names on the announcement, the product page, Manufacturing Dive and Anthropic's public plugins repository on GitHub on 2026-11-14 and did not find one; the claude.ai directory listing needs a sign-in.
- Read Anthropic's "Set up the Microsoft 365 connector" and "Microsoft 365 connector security guide" help articles on 2026-11-14 for the consent options, the two app IDs, Assignment required, the scope list, the tenant-wide SharePoint search, write-tool settings and Conditional Access support.
- Read Anthropic's "Manage plugins for your organization" article for the Organization settings > Plugins & skills path, install preferences and Enterprise group targeting, and the privacy center article on model training.
- Compared Copilot statements against Microsoft Learn's "Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot" page (updated 2026-11-04).
- Did not use coverage that contradicts Anthropic's pages, such as claims about PLC or SCADA connectors, air-gapped deployment or pilot results.
- Not tested on a live Claude Team tenant or Microsoft 365 tenant; steps follow Anthropic's and Microsoft's documentation as of 2026-11-14, and screen labels may change.

Last tested: 2026-11-14

## References

- Anthropic: Introducing Claude for Manufacturing (November 12, 2026) - https://claude.com/resources/articles/claude-for-manufacturing
- Anthropic: Claude for Manufacturing product page - https://claude.com/solutions/manufacturing
- Anthropic: Claude for Manufacturing technical webinar - https://claude.com/resources/webinars/claude-for-manufacturing-put-your-plants-know-how-to-work
- Anthropic: The Model Hardware Standard, a research preview - https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-hardware-standard-research-preview
- Claude Help Center: Set up the Microsoft 365 connector - https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12542951-set-up-the-microsoft-365-connector
- Claude Help Center: Microsoft 365 connector security guide - https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12684923-microsoft-365-connector-security-guide
- Claude Help Center: Manage plugins for your organization - https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13837433-manage-plugins-for-your-organization
- Anthropic Privacy Center: Is my data used for model training? - https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/7996868-is-my-data-used-for-model-training
- Microsoft Learn: Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/microsoft-365-copilot-privacy
- Manufacturing Dive: Anthropic launches 'Claude for Manufacturing' (November 12, 2026) - https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/anthropic-launches-claude-for-manufacturing/874303/
- AdvancedManufacturing.org: Anthropic debuts Claude for Manufacturing (November 13, 2026) - https://www.advancedmanufacturing.org/news-desk/anthropic-debuts-claude-for-manufacturing/article_dfbe4d5b-cf4e-491f-86c4-90d57e818097.html

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does Claude for Manufacturing cost?

Anthropic has not published a separate price for the plugin. Its announcement says the plugin is available on Claude Team and Enterprise plans, and the product page links only to the general Claude pricing page. Budget for the Team or Enterprise seats your users need and check claude.com/pricing or ask Anthropic sales.

### Does Claude for Manufacturing control machines or PLCs?

No. Anthropic says the plugin doesn't operate equipment, doesn't run production control and doesn't write to systems of record. Equipment control is the subject of a separate Anthropic project, the Model Hardware Standard, which is a limited research preview and not part of the plugin.

### Which systems does it connect to?

Four connectors ship with the plugin: Autodesk Fusion, Infor, Microsoft 365 and Oracle NetSuite. For any other system, Anthropic's suggestion is to save regular exports from that system to Microsoft 365, where Claude can read the files through the Microsoft 365 connector.

### Do we need a Global Administrator to use the Microsoft 365 connector?

Yes, once. A Microsoft Entra Global Administrator has to grant a one-time, tenant-wide consent before work or school accounts can connect. On Team and Enterprise plans, a Claude organization owner also has to add the connector in Organization settings before members can connect.

### Is it a good fit for food, chemicals or other process manufacturers?

Partly. Anthropic's own answer is "Partly, today." The best fit is job shops where each job gets its own quote, drawing and routing. Process manufacturers can use the morning report, breakdown diagnosis and supplier skills straight away, and adapt the quoting and quality skills to batch records.