A volunteer asks what time setup starts for the fall retreat. You know your team decided this.

You check Slack first. Then you search your email. Then you open the shared drive and scroll through a few versions of the retreat plan.

The answer was in a Slack thread from last month. You scrolled right past it the first time.

Your team’s answers are spread across your inbox, your Slack channels, and your shared drive. Finding one means checking each app by hand.

WHAT ENTERPRISE SEARCH IS

Enterprise search lets Claude look through your organization’s apps all at once. You’ll find it as a project called Ask Your Org in your Claude sidebar. Once it’s set up, the name changes to “Ask” plus your organization’s name.

You ask one question. Claude searches tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Drive, Microsoft 365, and SharePoint. Then it gives you one answer and shows you the sources it used.

Claude searches your apps live each time you ask. Anthropic doesn’t build an index of your app data to answer your questions.

HOW TO SET IT UP

An owner has to set it up first. These steps come from Claude’s help center.

1. Click “Ask Your Org” in the menu on the left.
2. Click “Set up for your org.”
3. Choose a connector for Documents and a connector for Chat. Both are required. Email is recommended but optional.
4. Click “+ Add more” to add any other tools your team needs, then click “Next.”
5. Enter a name. The project will show as “Ask” plus that name in the sidebar.
6. Enter a description, then click “Finish set up.”

Then each staff member does this.

1. Click the “Ask” project with your organization’s name in the sidebar.
2. Follow the guided steps to connect the recommended services.
3. Sign in to the services you want to search, like Slack, Google, or Microsoft 365.
4. Start asking questions about your organization.

The more tools each person connects, the more complete the answers will be. To change your connected tools later, open the project and click “Search and tools.”

3 WAYS TO USE IT AT CHURCH

Start with event details. Ask, “What did we decide about setup time for the fall retreat?” Claude checks Slack, email, and your shared drive, then gives you the answer and shows you where it found it.

It helps before a board meeting too. Ask Claude to pull together everything your team has said about the parking lot repair since the start of the year.

You get one summary with sources. You can click into each one to read the full thread or file.

You can also use it for onboarding. A new staff member can ask how your church handles volunteer background checks.

Claude finds your policy doc and the Slack threads about it. They get an answer without waiting on you.

GUARDRAILS FOR CHURCHES

You only see results from data you can already open in the original app. If you don’t have access to a folder or channel, Claude won’t show you what’s in it. Each person signs in with their own account.

There’s one exception owners should know. Some custom connectors use one shared login, like an API key.

Everyone who uses that connector sees whatever that login can see. Be careful which login you use there.

This is a good time to check your permissions. Pastoral care notes, counseling records, member data, and donor details should be in folders and channels with tight access. If too many people can open them in Google Drive or Slack today, fix that first.

Your conversations in Ask Your Org stay private unless you share them. The search data stays with the conversation, so deleting the conversation deletes it.

The owner controls whether your team has this at all. It’s turned on by default, but other staff can’t use it until the owner finishes setup. An owner can also turn it off under Organization settings, then Capabilities.

A few more things to know. Searches count toward your normal usage limits.

Searching a lot of large sources can take a while. If one app fails to connect, Claude searches the rest and tells you.

WHO CAN USE IT

Enterprise search is on Team and Enterprise plans. It works in the Claude desktop app. It isn’t available in the iPhone or Android apps.

Ask your org, and get the answer in one place.

If you want to see how other leaders set this up for their teams, come join us in The Builder Collective. It’s a community of executive leaders learning how to put AI to work. You can find us at thebuildercollective.ai.