Espocrm

@espocrm show me the current user's permissions and role settings so I can understand what data I have access to

Retrieved your EspoCRM user profile. You're logged in as sarah.chen@company.com with the 'Sales Manager' role. Your permissions include: full access to Accounts and Opportunities, read-only access to Reports, and no access to Administration modules. Your default team is 'West Coast Sales' and your preferred currency is USD. The ACL scope shows you can view all records owned by your team members but can edit only your own records.

This example uses the Get App User tool to surface role-based access controls. Useful for onboarding new teammates or auditing permissions. Requires a valid API key with at least read access to user data. The response reflects the authenticated user's session state, so results vary by who's asking.

@espocrm what entity types and fields are available in our CRM? I need to know the schema before importing contact data

EspoCRM metadata retrieved. Your instance has 18 standard entities enabled: Account, Contact, Lead, Opportunity, Case, Email, Meeting, Call, Task, Document, Campaign, Target List, Knowledge Base Article, Product, Quote, Sales Order, Invoice, and Contract. The Contact entity includes 24 fields: firstName, lastName, emailAddress (multi-enum), phoneNumber (multi-enum), accountName (link), assignedUser (link), teams (link-multiple), plus 8 custom fields you've added (linkedInProfile, preferredContactMethod, lastTouchDate, leadSource, industry, annualRevenue, employeeCount, notes). All required fields and validation rules are included in the full metadata response.

This example uses Get Metadata to discover the CRM's schema before data operations. Critical for import/export workflows or building integrations. The metadata call returns the entire system configuration, which can be large (100KB+) for heavily customized instances. Rate limits apply to metadata requests—cache results when possible rather than fetching on every prompt.

@espocrm check my access level and then explain which opportunity stages I can move deals through based on my role's workflow permissions

First retrieved your user profile: you have the 'Sales Rep' role with standard opportunity access. Then cross-referenced the metadata to map your workflow permissions. Based on your ACL settings, you can move opportunities through these stages: Prospecting → Qualification → Proposal → Negotiation. However, you cannot directly set opportunities to 'Closed Won' or 'Closed Lost'—those stage transitions require approval from a Sales Manager role. Your role also restricts editing opportunities assigned to other reps unless they're on your shared team. The workflow enforces a required 'Close Reason' field before any deal can reach a Closed status.

This synthesis example chains both tools—Get App User for role context, then Get Metadata for workflow rules—to answer a business process question. Demonstrates how the AI can reason across EspoCRM's permission model and entity configuration. Note that this MCP provides read-only metadata access; it cannot modify ACL rules or workflow definitions, only surface what's already configured in your instance.

When Espocrm MCP works for support teams under 10 people

A 6-person support team uses Espocrm to track customer issues and needs quick context when a ticket escalates. This MCP is a fit if your workflow is: agent reads a Slack thread, asks Switchy to pull the customer's Espocrm record, then drafts a response with full history. The two tools—Get App User and Get Metadata—give you auth verification and system config, but no actual CRM read/write operations. That means you're limited to setup and permission checks, not pulling contact records or updating deal stages. If your team needs to query or update CRM data during a conversation, this MCP won't close the loop. Use it only if you're building custom tooling on top and need the metadata layer to configure your own API calls.

Espocrm MCP as an onboarding reference tool

A 3-person sales team brings on a new rep who needs to learn Espocrm's field structure, user roles, and workflow rules. This MCP is useful in the first week: the rep asks Switchy to explain what fields exist on the Lead entity or what permissions their role has, and Switchy calls Get Metadata to return the schema. It's a lightweight way to answer "what can I do in this CRM?" without opening the admin panel. The limitation: once onboarding is done, the MCP doesn't help with day-to-day selling. You can't create leads, log calls, or update pipeline stages. If your team wants Switchy to assist with actual CRM tasks—like logging a demo or checking deal status—you'll need a different integration or custom API work. This is a reference tool, not an operational one.

Using Espocrm MCP to document access control

A 12-person services firm runs a quarterly audit to confirm who has access to sensitive client data in Espocrm. This MCP is a narrow fit: an ops lead asks Switchy to pull the current user's ACL settings and system metadata, then compares them against a policy doc. The Get App User and Get Metadata tools return role definitions and permission structures, which is enough to generate a snapshot of "what this user can see." The trade-off: you're limited to one user at a time (the authenticated API key holder), so bulk audits across 12 users require 12 separate API keys or manual iteration. If your audit process needs to compare permissions across the whole team in one pass, this MCP won't scale. It's a spot-check tool, not a compliance dashboard.