Connect Open Referral to your AI assistant

Last updated: July 5, 2026

Open Referral Copilot is a remote MCP (Model Context Protocol) connector that lets recruiters and admins pilot their employee referral program in natural language, directly from an AI assistant such as Claude, ChatGPT, Le Chat or Gemini. It is read-only and privacy by design: candidate identities are minimised to first name + initial, and no emails or phone numbers ever reach the AI assistant.

Before you start

• An Open Referral account on an eligible plan (Essential or Scale).
• An Admin or Recruiter role in at least one organisation.
• An AI assistant that supports custom MCP connectors (see per-assistant notes below).

Connect (any MCP-compatible assistant)

1. Open your assistant’s connector settings and choose Add a custom connector (wording varies by product).
2. Paste the server URL https://mcp.openreferral.io.
3. When prompted, sign in to Open Referral and approve access on the consent screen. Your assistant registers automatically (Dynamic Client Registration) — no client ID or secret to copy.
4. Ask a question (see example prompts below). The assistant will call the relevant read-only tool and answer.

Per-assistant notes

Assistant	Where to add it	Status
Claude (web & desktop)	Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector	Supported
Le Chat (Mistral)	Connectors → Add a custom connector (URL)	Supported — validated end to end
ChatGPT	Settings → Connectors / developer mode → add MCP server	Beta — available in developer mode
Gemini app	Settings & help → Connected Apps → Add a custom app link	Coming soon

Availability of custom-connector features depends on each provider’s own plan and regional restrictions.

What you can ask

• “How is our referral program doing this quarter?”
• “What’s waiting on my team right now?”
• “Show me recent referrals with unpaid bonuses.”
• “What are best practices to relaunch a referral program that’s losing steam?”

Available tools (all read-only)

Tool	What it returns
List My Organisations	Organisations where you are Admin or Recruiter
Get Program Overview	Total referrals, pipeline, hires, bonuses paid
Get Referral Trend	Monthly referral trends
List Pending Actions	Items awaiting your team
List Recent Referrals	Latest referrals (candidate names minimised)
List Knowledge Entries	Best-practice playbooks available
Get Knowledge Entry	Full text of a specific playbook

Privacy

The connector queries only Open Referral’s own database and makes no third-party calls. Candidate identities are reduced to first name + initial; emails, phone numbers and direct identifiers are never exposed. Each tool call is logged for security and audit. Full details are in our Privacy Policy (section “AI Assistant Connector (MCP)”).

Troubleshooting

• “No organisations found.” Your account has no Admin or Recruiter role. Ask an admin to grant one.
• Copilot not available on your plan. The connector requires an Essential or Scale plan. Contact your organisation administrator.
• The connection window doesn’t complete. Make sure pop-ups are allowed and that you finished the sign-in and consent steps. Retry from the connector settings.

Support

Questions or a security issue? Email support@openreferral.io.