Custom tools overview

Optimizely Opal includes powerful default functionality, but every business has unique needs, proprietary systems, and specialized workflows that generic solutions cannot fully address. Custom tools help fill these gaps.

Building custom tools lets you complete tasks like the following:

• Extend Opal's capabilities – Extend what Opal can do by adding tools that execute actions or pull information from other services, such as exporting a chat to PDF or calculating experiment runtime.
• Integrate with your existing systems – Connect Opal with critical business systems like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, analytics tools, data warehouses, or third-party marketing services.
• Automate tasks – Automate repetitive marketing and development tasks. Tools let Opal run workflows based on inputs or conditions, reducing manual effort and errors. Examples include performing calculations, manipulating data, or generating content like images, charts, or formatted documents.
• Enhance user experience – Enhance Opal's responses and actions by making them more accurate, contextual, and personalized. This reduces manual workarounds and switching between Opal and other systems.
• Scale and customize – Scale and customize Opal to fit your organization’s unique needs and goals.

Use custom tools as an alternative to custom remote MCP connectors

Custom remote MCP connectors are not currently available in Opal. If you need to connect Opal to a service that is not covered by an existing remote MCP connector, custom tools are the recommended path. You have the following two options:

• Build a custom tool – Create a tool with a /discovery endpoint using one of the Opal SDKs, then register it through OCP and add it to Opal. See Create custom tools and Add a custom tool to Optimizely Opal.
• Use the Zapier MCP connector – Create an MCP server at mcp.zapier.com, add the third-party tools you need (such as Slack or Gmail), then install the Zapier MCP tool from the OCP App Directory to use it as a bridge. Note that all users in your organization share the same access level for Zapier tool connections. See Zapier Remote MCP connector tool.

See Create custom tools for next steps.