Overview: Gain Business Insights With the Canix MCP Server
Objective: Once you've connected the Canix MCP Server to Claude or ChatGPT (see our Setup & Getting Started Guide here), you can ask natural-language questions about your Canix data and get instant answers — no exports or manual lookups required. This article shows the kinds of questions the server can answer today, grouped by data area, with example answers and visuals.
Benefit: This reduces time spent on reporting, surfaces insights you might not think to look for, and lets you combine data across sales, inventory, and purchasing in a single query.
Business Logic: Each data area (Sales, Inventory, Purchasing) is queryable on its own or combined in a single question — so you can ask both targeted questions and cross-functional ones that no single report covers. Answer quality depends on the completeness of your underlying data.
The MCP Server currently exposes:
- Sales — order line items, revenue, customers, sales reps, brands, discounts, and taxes.
- Inventory — current package-level stock, status, location, COGS, aging, and allocations.
- Purchasing — purchase orders, vendor details, costs, receiving status, and payment terms.
More data types are planned for future releases.
Each section lists questions you can ask, with flagship examples showing what answers look like. You can ask any of these in plain language and follow up to drill deeper.
Note: Our team used Claude and our own sandbox data for the following examples.
Table of Contents
- Glossary
- Prerequisites & Setup
- Explore By Data Area
- System Impacts & Dependencies
- What the MCP Server Can't Do Yet
- Troubleshooting Common Issues
- Share Your Feedback
Glossary
MCP (Model Context Protocol): The protocol that connects Canix to AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT, allowing you to query your Canix data in natural language.
Sales velocity: How quickly a product is selling over a given time period, typically measured in units or weight sold per day or week.
COGS (Cost of Goods Sold): The total standard cost assigned to a package in Canix, comprising cannabis material, non-cannabis ingredients, and labor costs. Used to calculate inventory value and gross margin.
Domain: A data area the MCP server can query — currently Sales, Inventory, and Purchasing.
Prerequisites & Setup
Permissions: You must have a Canix account with access to the facilities and data you want to query. The MCP server enforces your existing Canix user permissions — you will only see data your account is authorized to view.
Necessary Data: Answer quality depends on how complete your Canix data is. For example:
- For margin and cost analysis: COGS must be entered for your packages.
- For open-order and pipeline views: Delivery dates must be set on your orders.
- For purchasing analysis: Purchase orders must be recorded in Canix with vendor and cost details.
Related Resources:
Explore by Data Area:
Sales
Revenue
Try: "Show me monthly revenue for the past 12 months."
The assistant returns a month-by-month revenue total and can chart the trend, so you can spot seasonality and growth at a glance.
Example: monthly revenue over 12 months (sandbox data)
More revenue questions to try:
- What was our total revenue last month?
- What's our average order value by month?
- Which day of the week do we sell the most?
- What percentage of our revenue comes from our top 5 customers?
Customers
Try: "Who are our top 10 customers by revenue this quarter?"
The assistant ranks customers by revenue and can add order counts and average order value alongside, so you see both your biggest spenders and how often they buy.
More customer questions to try:
- Which customers have ordered most frequently this year?
- How many new versus returning customers did we have each month?
- Which customers receive the most discounts as a percentage of spend?
- Which accounts have stopped ordering recently?
Products, Brands, and Strains
Try: "What are our top-selling brands by revenue this quarter?"
The assistant breaks revenue down by brand, and you can pivot the same question to product, category, or strain.
More product questions to try:
- Show me revenue by product category for the last 30 days.
- Which strains sell best by weight?
- What are our top 20 products by unit count?
- What's our average price per gram of flower this month?
Sales Representatives and States
Try: "Compare sales reps by revenue and order count this year."
The assistant returns a per-rep breakdown of revenue, orders, and average order value, which helps you see who drives high-value deals versus high-volume relationships.
More sales rep and state questions to try:
- Show me shipped revenue by sales rep and brand for the last quarter.
- Which states generate the most revenue?
- Break down revenue by customer state for this year.
Open Order Pipeline
Try: "What's the total value of my open sales orders?"
The assistant sums committed-but-unfulfilled orders by status, so you can see what's in the pipeline. You can also ask it to pull data from orders with only one specific status.
More pipeline questions to try:
- How much revenue is currently backordered?
- Show me open orders scheduled to ship next month.
Note: Open-order questions reflect committed orders only, based on each order's status and scheduled delivery date. They are not a sales forecast.
Inventory
The inventory area covers current package-level stock: status, location, COGS, aging, and allocations.
Stock Levels
Try: "Which products have less than 10 units in stock?"
The assistant lists low-stock products with their available quantities, so you can catch shortages before they become stockouts.
More stock questions to try:
- How much inventory do we have available to sell right now?
- Show me total inventory on hand by category.
- How much inventory is currently allocated versus available?
Aging & Compliance
Try: "Which packages are closest to expiration?"
The assistant surfaces packages by expiration or age, which helps you prioritize what to move first.
More aging and compliance questions to try:
- Show me packages that have been in stock the longest.
- Which packages haven't been submitted to compliance yet?
Cost & Value
Try: "What's the total standard cost of our current inventory?"
The assistant totals cost of goods across on-hand packages, and you can break it down by brand or item.
More cost and value questions to try:
- Show me on-hand value by brand.
- Which items have the highest cost of goods?
Purchasing
The purchasing area covers purchase orders: vendor details, costs, receiving status, and payment terms.
Try: "Who are our top vendors by spend this year?"
The assistant ranks vendors by total purchase order spend and can break down by product category and order status, so you can see both your largest suppliers and their order patterns.
More purchasing questions to try:
- What's my total spend on open purchase orders?
- Which vendors have delivered late recently?
- Break down my procurement spend by category this year.
- How much do I currently owe all vendors?
- Show me monthly procurement spend for the past 12 months.
Combining Sales, Inventory, and Purchasing
These questions draw on more than one data area at once.
Fast Movers, Stock, and Suppliers
Try: "Which products are selling fastest — are we stocked, and who do we buy from?"
The assistant combines sales velocity (how fast a product is selling) with current available stock, then flags which fast movers are well stocked, running tight, or already out. Purchasing history surfaces who supplies it and when you last ordered. This is a reorder-planning view built from three data areas in one question.
Customer Profitability
Try: "Which customers generate the most margin, not just revenue?"
The assistant pairs sales revenue with inventory COGS to estimate gross margin per customer, revealing that your top-revenue accounts aren't always your most profitable.
System Impacts & Dependencies
| Action | Dependency | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Querying sales revenue | Order status | Results vary based on whether you filter by shipped, open, or all orders. Specify status for accuracy. |
| Querying inventory cost | COGS data entry | Cost totals only reflect packages with a standard cost entered in Canix. |
| Querying open order pipeline | Delivery dates | Pipeline views rely on scheduled delivery dates being set on orders. |
| Querying purchasing data | PO records | Vendor and spend analysis requires purchase orders to be recorded in Canix with cost details. |
| Cross-domain queries | Data completeness | Results are only as accurate as the underlying data across each area involved. |
What the MCP Server Can't Do Yet
To set expectations, some questions fall outside the current data scope:
- Harvest and cultivation data — plant counts, active harvests, and yield forecasts are not yet queryable.
- Production and manufacturing schedules — scheduled production runs are not yet available.
- Sales commissions — the server does not calculate commissions or track payouts. You can, however, pull the revenue inputs a commission plan uses (for example, shipped revenue by rep and brand) and apply your own rates outside Canix.
- Sales forecasting — the server reports committed and historical data, not probability-weighted projections.
💡 Troubleshooting Common Issues
The Setup & Getting Started Guide covers the basics (be specific about time ranges, name your facility, ask follow-up questions). A few more tips that help with the questions above:
Query returns unexpected results: Check whether you specified an order status — "shipped revenue" counts only fulfilled orders, while "open orders" counts committed-but-unfulfilled ones. Try adding "shipped" or "fulfilled" to narrow results.
Average order value looks higher than expected: Average order value is total revenue divided by the number of distinct orders, so a few large bulk orders can raise the average significantly.
Cost data looks incomplete: Inventory cost totals only include packages that have a standard cost entered in Canix. Keeping cost data current makes these answers more accurate.
Open order pipeline doesn't match expectations: Confirm that delivery dates are set on your orders. Pipeline views by date rely on scheduled delivery dates being recorded.
Purchasing data is missing or incomplete: Check that your purchase orders are recorded in Canix with vendor and cost details entered. The server can query historical purchasing data.
A generated visual has formatting issues: Minor issues like overlapping text or uneven spacing can occasionally appear. You can ask the assistant to correct these directly — for example, "can you give the text more space in the status badges?" or "the column headers are overlapping, can you fix that?" — and it will adjust and regenerate the visual.
A question doesn't return what you expected: Try rephrasing with more specifics — add a time range, facility name, or order status. If the issue persists, contact our support team or submit feedback here.
We're just getting started
The MCP Server is new and evolving, and this list of questions will grow as we add more data areas. If a question doesn't return what you expected, or you'd like to see a capability that isn't here yet, we'd love to hear from you. Your feedback directly shapes what we build next.
Have a question or want to share feedback? Contact our support team or submit feedback here.