AI enablement: Claude, Power BI, and Microsoft 365
Husco International builds hydraulic and electro-mechanical components for the automotive and off-highway markets, and has done it for more than eighty years. The company is privately owned and runs on Microsoft. Power BI reports and dashboards run the business day to day.
Where we picked it up
As a Microsoft shop Husco began it's AI enablement project using Copilot, which offered a plug and play window into their company's PowerBI and M365 data with the intent of allowing users instant access to quick answers about the state of various business processes. Having found the depth and thoroughness of Copilot responses to be thin, they set out to try Claude combined with MCP connectors to determine if Claude could provide better analysis of data given it has the same level of access that was baked into Copilot and their Microsoft tools. After finding large gaps in the off-the-shelf PowerBI connector, they rolled a custom MCP internally. This showed progress, but issues with identify and PowerBI report context left the solution lacking essential functionality.
What we built
The custom MCP connector built by Husco had a number of gaps we were able to fill: Problems with identity and session persistence, a lack of context into PowerBI reports, and a disconnect between PowerBI data and other info living in M365 assets such as emails and Teams messages. We closed those gaps by rebuilding session management, consuming PowerBI report context in addition to semantic model information, and building a light skill layer that instructed Claude on how to use the connectors in tandem to provide accurate, contextually rich answers to common business questions.
An in-depth evaluation criteria was developed at the onset of the project to benchmark correctness and richness of responses, containing ~100 test cases developed from the business requirements. The eval suite was run at multiple phases of the MCP and skill development to gauge overall solutions performance.
One identity, all the way through
The server carries the signed-in user's own identity to Power BI and Microsoft 365, using delegated on-behalf-of authentication against Entra ID with JWT validation and no stored secrets. Claude sees what that person could already open natively. We tested it at the boundary: two users with different entitlements ask the same question, and each gets back only their own data. A leak across that line blocks the capability from going live, and blocks a write harder than a read.
Ready to get started?
We see our clients as our partners and are invested in their success. We ensure what we build for our clients will have a positive ROI. We never build anything just for the sake of it.
