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Ask Claude, and connect Claude to Diract

Send an email, a document or a record's files to Claude, Anthropic's model, with a question, and Diract saves the answer into the matter. Or connect claude.ai, Claude Desktop or Claude Code to Diract, so Claude can find and list your records, read and search their documents, add tasks and events, and save what it writes.

There are two ways to use Claude with Diract, paid for differently. Option 1, Ask Claude, is a button inside Diract, paid from your company's AI credit. Option 2 connects Claude's own apps (claude.ai, Claude Desktop or Claude Code) to your records, under each person's own Claude plan with Anthropic, and Diract charges nothing for it. You can use either or both. Both are under AI on the top bar, then Claude.

Ask Claude sends only your question and the files you tick. Nothing else in Diract goes with it.

Ask Claude is paid for in advance from your company's AI credit, in US dollars, the same credit Scout uses once its free monthly tokens run out. Each answered question takes what it used: about US$0.06 for a question about one email, about US$0.23 with a 10 page PDF, and about US$0.81 to summarise a 50 page contract. A question cannot start while the credit is under US$1.00.

A connection to Claude acts as you. Claude sees and changes only what you can in Diract. It can list and search your records and documents, add a task, a calendar event or a record, change a field you can change, and order identity checks. An everyday connection never removes a record or a file, and never sends an email or a text. A full control connection, which only an admin can make, can do anything an admin can (see ChatGPT, Gemini and other apps).

On this page

Top up AI credit

Click AI on the top bar, then Claude, and under AI credit, for option 1 click Add US$20.00, Add US$50.00 or Add US$100.00. Admins can top up, and so can anybody an admin gives Top up AI credit under Admin, then Permissions. A drawer opens on the same screen and shows what you get and what you pay: each pack costs its credit plus GST, so US$20.00 of credit is US$22.00. Pay with the card on file in one click, or click Use another card. The credit is added a moment after the payment goes through, and the tax invoice is under Billing.

When the credit runs low, the Ask Claude drawer says so and offers the same buttons, so a top up never means leaving the email or document you were on.

Recent activity under the balance lists each top up, each question, and each charge for Diract's own AI, with what it took.

Choose how to ask in the drawer

Every AI drawer starts with three choices. 1. Ask Claude here answers in Diract and is paid from your company's AI credit. 2. Send to Claude Desktop and 3. Send to Claude online use your own Claude plan.

With option 2, type your question, tick the files and click Open in Claude Desktop. Diract gets the email and files ready and opens Claude Desktop with a message already typed. Press Enter there. Claude collects everything through your Diract connection and answers.

Option 3 works the same way in a browser: click Open in claude.ai, and claude.ai opens in a new tab with the message typed. A connector you add under Connectors in Claude reaches Diract from claude.ai and Claude Desktop alike, so one connection serves both.

Once the message is ready, Copy the message copies it for another Claude app, and Copy for Claude Code copies a command to paste into a terminal where Claude Code is connected to Diract.

Click Add files in any option to send files from your computer as well.

Ask Claude about an email

Open the email in Diract Mail and click AI on the toolbar, or Ask AI about this email in the panel on the right. To ask about one attachment, click the sparkle button on that attachment: only it starts ticked.

Type your question under Your question. Under Attachments to send, untick any attachment Claude does not need. To include the rest of the conversation, tick Also send the earlier emails in this conversation.

Under Save the answer to, choose the matter. It starts on the matter the conversation is filed to. Click Ask Claude.

A bar shows each step while Claude reads and writes. When it finishes, the drawer shows Claude's answer and the files Diract saved to the matter: a Word document holding your question, the files you sent and the answer, and any document Claude made.

Ask Claude about a record's documents

Open the record, then its Documents tab, and click Ask Claude.

Tick the documents to send under Documents to send, type your question and click Ask Claude. Diract saves the answer to the same record's documents.

Ask Claude in the Word and PDF editors

In the Word editor, click AI on the Home tab. The pane opens beside the page.

Diract sends the document as it is now, including changes you have not saved.

A document opened from a matter or record has the answer saved to that record. Any other is saved beside the document you have open. Click Put the answer in the document to add the answer at the cursor.

In the PDF editor, click AI in the top bar to do the same with the PDF, edits included. A PDF opened from a record has the answer saved there; any other offers it to download.

See what was asked about a matter

Open the matter and its Scout tab. Under the Scout conversations, Conversations with Claude lists every question asked about this matter from any AI button: who asked, from where and when.

A chat in your own Claude app stays one conversation for as long as it runs. Carry on in that chat a few days later, and Claude saves each new answer to the same conversation. Its row then shows how many questions the conversation holds and when you asked the latest.

Click a row to read Claude's answers in order, the files sent with each question and the files each answer was saved as.

Carry on a conversation from the matter

On the matter's Scout tab, click one of your own rows under Conversations with Claude. Type your next message in the box under the last answer.

Click Ask Claude here to have Claude answer on the matter. Claude reads the conversation so far, and its answer is added to the same conversation and saved to the matter's documents. It is paid from your company's Claude credit, the same as Ask Claude in Diract.

Or click Send to my Claude app to carry on in Claude instead. Diract opens claude.ai with your message and copies it too. Press Enter in Claude, and when Claude saves its answer it is added to the same conversation.

A conversation you had in ChatGPT, Gemini or another connected app says so beside its date, and its button sends your message to that app. ChatGPT opens with your message in a new tab. Gemini opens empty, so paste the message Diract copied. For any other app, click Copy for your app and paste it there.

Read your answers again in Scout

Open Scout. Under your Scout conversations, Claude lists every question you asked Claude, newest first, with the record each answer was saved to.

Click a row to read the questions and Claude's answers. Click Open with the record's name to go to that record.

Connect Claude to Diract

Click AI on the top bar, then Claude. Type a name under Name this connection, such as "Claude on my laptop", and click Make a connection.

For claude.ai or Claude Desktop: in Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector. Name it Diract and paste the Server address Diract shows into its URL. Under Authentication choose No sign-in. Under Request headers click Add header, type Authorization as its name and paste the Header value Diract shows. Click Add.

For Claude Code: copy the Command Diract shows and run it in a terminal.

In a conversation, ask Claude about your records, for example "find the Smith matter and summarise the contract in its documents". Claude asks before it uses Diract the first time.

Claude can link a property to a matter, for example "link 123 Example Street to the land tax matter". The property has to be in Diract already, and Claude can add it first. It can also save files you give it, such as photos, to a record's documents, and attach a file it made or you gave it to an email draft. It can search your email in Diract Mail, read an email's attachments and attach them to a draft, for example "attach the three files from Jane's last email to the reply". Nothing needs allowing in Claude's settings for any of these.

Have Claude draft, change and discard emails

Ask Claude to write an email, for example "reply to Jane with the marked up lease attached". Claude saves it as a draft in the mailbox you connected under Mail, with your signature, and never sends it. Each draft Claude writes carries the Claude label in Gmail, or the Claude category in Outlook, so you can tell it from your own.

To send a file with it, name the file, such as "attach the exchanged contract". Claude attaches any file it can find in the matter's documents, including its folders and OneDrive. One email carries up to 25 MB, so Claude tells you which file to leave out when they come to more.

To change it, ask the way you would ask a colleague, such as "make it shorter" or "copy in the agent". Claude rewrites that draft and discards the old version, so Drafts holds only the new one.

To get rid of one, ask Claude to delete the draft. It can only discard drafts: a sent or received email is refused.

Open Drafts in Diract Mail to read the email and send it.

Have Claude change your workspace

An admin makes the connection with Full control under What it can do. Then ask Claude for the change the way you would describe it, for example "add a Visits table linked to Jobs, with hours, a rate and the cost worked out" or "fix the Unpaid invoices dashboard so it shows the customer".

Claude reads your tables, fields, dashboards, automations, roles, permissions and apps, makes the change, and checks it with Diract before anything happens. It then lists what will be added, changed and removed, with anything removed first.

Say yes, and Diract makes every change at once, or none of them. If somebody changed the workspace while you were reading the list, nothing is changed and Claude checks again.

To take a change back, ask Claude to undo it, for example "undo the change that added Visits". Ask what was changed recently to see the list.

Claude can build apps that install npm packages and call outside services, such as a map or a payments provider. When a service needs a key, Claude tells you its name: add it under Admin, then Secrets, and paste the value there, never into the chat. Then approve the app's calls under Tools, then Plugins.