PlatoForms User Guide
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  • Form Builder

    Creating an Online Form for an Existing PDF

  • Custom Domain

    With Builder you can build three types of forms: online web forms, online PDF forms, and master forms.

  • Master Form Builder

    you will arrive at the Form Builder. On the form Builder, there are three main sections:

What's new? API Docs

Connect your AI assistant (MCP)

Tabs

PlatoForms supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — the open standard that lets AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and OpenAI Codex work with your PlatoForms account directly. Once connected, you can simply ask your assistant to:

  • “What did the latest submission to my intake form say?” — it finds the form, reads the answers, and can hand you a time-limited PDF download link.
  • “Submit this test entry to my feedback form.”
  • “Create a link to my order form with the customer’s email pre-filled.”
  • “Create an event registration form for our community workshop.” — the AI builds a whole new form (or PDF document) from your description; open the link it returns and watch the design appear.

To use MCP, you need a PlatoForms account with API access. New accounts include API access during the 15-day free trial. Assistant actions use your available API quota and are subject to additional rate limits.

Your assistant only ever gets the access you grant. Every action goes through the same permission and plan checks as the PlatoForms app. For teams with HIPAA compliance enabled, AI assistant access is switched off by default — a team owner can turn it on after reviewing the data use and restricted data section below.

The PlatoForms MCP server address is:

https://mcp.platoforms.com

Connect ChatGPT

  1. Open Plugins in ChatGPT and search for PlatoForms, or open the PlatoForms plugin page.

  2. Select Install, then sign in to PlatoForms.

  3. Choose read-only or read-and-write access and select Allow.

  4. In a chat, type @PlatoForms and ask something like “List my published forms and their submission counts.”

Your PlatoForms password is not shared with ChatGPT. You can revoke the connection at any time.

Connect Claude (one click)

Works with Claude on the web and Claude Desktop.

  1. In Claude, open Settings > Connectors and click Add custom connector.

  2. Enter https://mcp.platoforms.com as the server URL and confirm.

  3. Claude opens a PlatoForms login page. Sign in and click Allow.

  4. Done — ask Claude something like “List my PlatoForms forms.”

You can disconnect at any time from Claude’s connector settings.

Note

Multiple teams: MCP authorizes the account you are signed into at the time of connecting — not whichever team is currently selected in the PlatoForms dashboard. If you need to connect a specific team, sign out of PlatoForms first, sign back in as that team’s account, then start the connection.

Connect Claude Code

In a terminal, run:

claude mcp add --transport http platoforms https://mcp.platoforms.com

Then start a new Claude Code session, type /mcp, select platoforms, and choose Authenticate. Sign in to PlatoForms in the browser window that opens and click Allow.

To try it out, ask something like “Using the PlatoForms tools, who am I logged in as?” — Claude should reply with your account email and team name.

Connect OpenAI Codex

Current versions of OpenAI Codex support OAuth sign-in for remote MCP servers. PlatoForms supports OAuth discovery, dynamic client registration, and PKCE, so your password and API key are never shared with Codex.

  1. Add PlatoForms as an MCP server:
codex mcp add platoforms --url https://mcp.platoforms.com
  1. Start the OAuth login:
codex mcp login platoforms

  1. Codex opens a PlatoForms login page. Sign in and click Allow.

  2. Start a new Codex session and ask “Using the PlatoForms tools, who am I logged in as?”

You can disconnect the account with codex mcp logout platoforms.

Note

PlatoForms publishes the OAuth metadata and supported scopes that Codex needs, so the normal setup does not require a fixed callback port, client ID, resource, or explicit scope list. Managed environments with special callback requirements can use Codex’s optional OAuth settings. See OpenAI’s Codex MCP documentation.

Connect with an API key (alternative)

OAuth is recommended for Claude and OpenAI Codex. Cursor, scripts, older clients, and other MCP-compatible tools can connect with a PlatoForms API key instead. In PlatoForms, open Account > API and copy your API token, then follow the steps for your tool below.

Warning

Your API key carries the team owner’s full API access — treat it like a password. Prefer the one-click connection where it’s available.

Cursor

Add the server to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (create the file if it doesn’t exist):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "platoforms": {
      "url": "https://mcp.platoforms.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <your API key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Cursor (or reload its MCP servers) and ask it to list your PlatoForms forms.

OpenAI Codex (API key)

Use this method for automation or when browser-based OAuth is unavailable. If you already configured the OAuth connection above, remove it first with codex mcp remove platoforms.

Add the server to ~/.codex/config.toml (create the file if it doesn’t exist):

[mcp_servers.platoforms]
url = "https://mcp.platoforms.com"
bearer_token_env_var = "PLATOFORMS_API_KEY"

Codex reads the API key from the environment variable named by bearer_token_env_var, so make it available before launching Codex — for example by adding this line to your shell profile:

export PLATOFORMS_API_KEY="<your API key>"

Restart Codex and ask it to list your PlatoForms forms.

Other MCP tools

Any MCP-compatible tool that supports remote (Streamable HTTP) servers can connect. Use https://mcp.platoforms.com as the server URL. If the tool supports PlatoForms OAuth, use its browser sign-in flow; otherwise, send your API key as a Bearer authorization header.

Turn AI assistant access on or off

Team owners can switch AI assistant access on or off for the whole team.

  1. In PlatoForms, open Account > API.

  2. Find the AI Assistant Access (MCP) panel and click Enable or Disable.

For teams without HIPAA compliance enabled, AI assistant access is on by default. For teams with HIPAA compliance enabled, it is off by default and stays off until a team owner turns it on. You do not need to disable HIPAA mode to use MCP.

Note

Before turning this on for a HIPAA-enabled team, read Data use and restricted data. Data sent to a third-party AI provider through MCP is not covered by the PlatoForms Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

Troubleshooting

Error 462

Your plan’s API quota has been reached. Either upgrade your plan or wait until your next billing cycle resets the quota.

Error 403 — Permission denied

This error appears in two different situations:

  • Actual permission issue — the connected account does not have access to the requested resource (for example, a form owned by a different team).
  • Resource not found — the form ID or submission ID passed to the tool does not exist. Double-check the ID and try again.

If you are confident the ID is correct and the account has access, try disconnecting and reconnecting to ensure the OAuth session is current.

What your assistant can do

  • Read — list and search forms, read form field definitions, list and read submissions, create expiring download links for generated PDFs and attachments.
  • Write — submit form entries and create prefilled invitation links. Links only: assistants can never send email from your account.
  • Create — new AI-designed web forms and PDF documents from a description.

Rate limits apply on top of your plan’s API quota, and every assistant-created invitation stays visible in your invitation list for review.

For example prompts for each of these, what comes back, and the things your assistant cannot do, see What to ask your AI assistant.

Data use and restricted data

PlatoForms sends the connected assistant only the tool input and result needed for the action you request. Depending on the tool, this can include your account identity, form names and field definitions, submission data, generated-document metadata, and time-limited file links. The MCP service is a stateless relay to the PlatoForms API and does not keep a separate copy of form or submission content after a request completes. It does not receive your full AI chat history.

The AI provider you connect receives the tool inputs and results and processes them under its own terms, privacy policy, retention rules, and account settings. Review these policies before connecting:

Do not use the MCP integration to collect, submit, or process payment-card data subject to PCI DSS, government identifiers, passwords, API keys, authentication secrets, or MFA/one-time codes.

Protected health information (PHI). MCP is off by default for teams with HIPAA compliance enabled, and a team owner may turn it on. Data sent to a third-party AI provider through MCP is not covered by the PlatoForms Business Associate Agreement. If you enable MCP on a HIPAA-enabled team, it is your responsibility as the covered entity to determine whether the disclosure is permissible under the HIPAA Rules and to hold any agreement you require directly with the AI provider you connect.

The public PlatoForms plugin for ChatGPT must not be used to collect, submit, retrieve, or otherwise process PHI.

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