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Connect an AI assistant

You can connect an AI assistant to Tawaasal and ask it about your school in ordinary language. "Who was absent in 9B yesterday?" "What is my timetable on Thursday?" "How is Sara doing in maths this term?"

The assistant reads your school's data on your behalf. It sees exactly what you see in Tawaasal, never more.

Before you start​

Your school has to allow it. AI connectors are off until a school admin turns them on, and the admin also chooses which roles may connect. If you cannot connect, that is the likely reason — ask your school admin.

You may need multi-factor authentication. Your school can require MFA for some roles before connecting. If you are asked for it, set up MFA on your account first.

You need an assistant that supports connectors. Tawaasal recognises ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code and Gemini Enterprise. Others can connect, but they appear as unverified — see below.

Connecting​

The steps happen mostly in your assistant, not in Tawaasal.

  1. In your assistant, add a new connector, integration or MCP server. Each product names this differently.

  2. When it asks for the address, give it:

    https://mcp.tawaasal.app/mcp

  3. The assistant sends you to Tawaasal to sign in. Sign in as you normally would.

  4. You are shown a consent screen: Connect an AI Assistant.

  5. Read it, then choose Allow.

The assistant can now answer questions about your school.

This screen is the one place where you decide what an assistant gets, so it is worth understanding.

  • Verified by Tawaasal means we recognise the assistant and have checked where it sends you back to.
  • If instead you see a warning that Tawaasal has not verified this assistant, it names the address it will return you to. Only continue if you recognise that address. If you do not, choose Deny.
  • This assistant will be able to read: lists the categories your school has allowed. You are granting these, and nothing outside them.
  • The screen also tells you that your questions and its answers go to the assistant's provider, and that some personal accounts on those services may use conversations to improve their models.

If you have connected this assistant before, the screen says whether this replaces your existing connection or adds categories to it.

Your questions leave Tawaasal

Whatever you ask, and whatever comes back, is sent to OpenAI, Anthropic or Google depending on the assistant. Once it leaves Tawaasal we no longer control it, including how long they keep it. Treat it the way you would treat pasting the same information into that assistant by hand — because that is what it is.

What you can ask​

The assistant can answer questions about:

  • Attendance — who was absent, late or excused on a day, which classes have not been marked yet
  • Grades — how a class performed on its assessments, and how one pupil is doing across subjects
  • Merit points — points awarded over a period, per-pupil totals, and the leaderboard
  • Timetable — a class's timetable, or your own, for a day or a week
  • School calendar — terms, holidays, trips and meetings in a period
  • Reports — which of the school's standard reports you may run, and running one

Your school admin chooses which of these are available, so your assistant may have fewer.

It cannot reach safeguarding concerns, wellbeing records or private messages. Those are excluded from connectors entirely, on every plan.

Ask about dates in plain language

"Yesterday", "last week" and "this term" all work. The assistant asks Tawaasal for your school's calendar and timezone before it answers, so it resolves them against your school year rather than against a generic calendar.

What it cannot do​

An assistant can only read. It cannot mark attendance, change a grade, send a message, approve a request or alter anything in Tawaasal. If you ask it to, it will tell you it cannot.

It also cannot see anything you could not see yourself. If you ask about a pupil outside your classes, it will tell you that pupil is not visible to you, rather than answering.

Seeing and disconnecting your assistants​

  1. Open your profile.
  2. Find Your Connected Assistants.

Each one shows when you connected it, when it was last used, and when it expires.

Select Disconnect to end one. It loses access immediately.

Show history lists connections that have ended and why.

When an assistant stops working​

Connections end for several ordinary reasons, and your profile names the one that applies:

  • You disconnected it
  • Revoked by your school admin
  • Your school disabled AI connectors
  • Your role can no longer connect an AI assistant
  • Your school's plan no longer includes AI connectors
  • Expired from inactivity — unused for 7 days
  • Your account moved to a different school

Some of these pause rather than end. If your school switches connectors off and later switches them back on, your assistant resumes by itself and you do not reconnect.

A connection also expires 90 days after you made it. Connect again to carry on.

If it will not connect​

  • "Your school has not enabled AI connectors" — ask your school admin to turn them on.
  • "Your role is not permitted to connect an AI assistant at this school" — your admin chooses which roles may connect.
  • "You must set up multi-factor authentication before connecting an AI assistant" — set up MFA on your account, then try again.
  • "Your school has not made any information available to AI assistants" — connectors are on, but every data category is switched off. Ask your admin to allow at least one.
  • "We don't recognise this AI assistant" — check with your school admin before allowing it.

Applies to Tawaasal 2.7.0