Connect Your AI to Your Business Tools · Lesson 7 of 8

Lesson 7: Write your team's connector rules

20 minutes. One page your staff can actually follow.

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You've connected tools and set safe defaults for yourself. The moment a second person connects their own account, those defaults stop being yours alone. Your office manager might click "Always allow" to save time. A part-timer might connect a personal Gmail to the company's Claude account. None of that is bad intent. It's just nobody having said otherwise.

This lesson turns your worksheet and the five habits from Lesson 6 into a one-page rulebook, and walks you through rolling it out.

What good rules look like
  • Short. One page. If it's longer, nobody reads it.
  • Specific. "Don't connect personal accounts" beats "Use good judgment."
  • Owned. One person, your AI champion (the person on your team who's most at ease with AI and agrees to look after it), is who staff ask, and who approves new connectors.
  • Reviewed. Put a date on it and look at it again in 90 days. These products change that fast.
The six sections

The Staff Connector Rules template has these sections. Fill each one in from your worksheet.

  • Approved tools and connectors. Which AI assistant (and which plan) the business uses, and which connectors are approved. Everything else needs asking first.
  • Accounts. Work accounts only. No personal email, personal drives or personal AI accounts connected to company data.
  • What it can do alone, what needs approval, what's never allowed. Straight from your worksheet's three columns.
  • The approval habit. Read every prompt: who, what, how much. Never click "Always allow" on anything that sends, pays, shares or deletes. If a prompt surprises you, deny it and tell the champion.
  • What never goes in. Information that doesn't belong in an AI tool at all, for your business. Common examples: full card numbers, Social Security numbers, passwords, patient or client records covered by a privacy law, and anything a contract says you must keep private.
  • When something goes wrong. Turn the connector off, tell the champion, don't try to fix it quietly. Name a backup person if the champion is out.
Rolling it out

Here's a rollout that works for a small team.

Week 1: the champion goes first. One person uses the approved connectors, read-only, for a week. They write down what worked and what surprised them.

Week 2: a 20-minute team huddle. Walk through the one-page rules. Show the off switch live. Show one approval prompt live. Then have everyone connect their own work account to the approved connectors, together, in the room (or on the call). Doing it together catches personal accounts and wrong plans on the spot.

Week 3: everyone uses one shared workflow. Pick one task everybody does (a morning inbox summary, a weekly overdue-invoice list). Everyone uses it for a week. Gather questions.

Week 4: review. Champion looks at what was connected, what was approved, and anything odd. Adjust the rules. Decide whether any tool is ready to move from read-only to drafting.

On Claude Team or Enterprise and ChatGPT Business or Enterprise, the Owner or admin can enforce part of this in settings: only approved connectors available, and specific actions set to need approval or blocked. Where the settings can enforce a rule, let them. The written rules cover the rest.

Exercise: write and share your rules (15 minutes)
  • Open the Staff Connector Rules template.
  • Fill in all six sections using your worksheet. Keep it to one page.
  • Name your AI champion and a backup.
  • Set a review date 90 days from today.
  • If you're on a team plan, open the admin settings (Claude: Organization settings, then Connectors; ChatGPT: Workspace settings, then Apps) and make the settings match the rules. If someone else is the admin, send them the rules with the request.
  • Put the rules where staff will see them: the team chat, the shared drive, or printed by the coffee maker.
Check it worked
  • Your rules fit on one page and name an owner and a review date.
  • Every connector on your approved list matches a row in your worksheet.
  • On a team plan, the admin settings match the rules (or a request to make them match has been sent).
  • At least one other person has read the rules and can tell you where the off switch is.

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Last lesson: put it all together into one workflow you'll use every week.

→ Lesson 8: Capstone

Previous: Lesson 6: Stay safe: approvals, read-only, and the off switch · Next: Lesson 8: Capstone: your Monday morning summary