Imagine the truck is about to leave. Order A is confirmed in the ERP. A note says the customer wants Order B reduced from 20 units to 12, but Claude returns an error when asked to find the original email. The shift lead has to decide which order can go on the truck and who will confirm the other one before dispatch.
Anthropic reported errors on many requests to the Microsoft 365 connector’s mail, calendar and search tools. It also reported errors in Claude for Outlook and attributed the disruption to a Microsoft 365 service incident. The reported window ran from 16:03 UTC on November 12 to 16:40 UTC on November 13, 2026 (23:03 on November 12 to 23:40 on November 13 in Thailand). Anthropic marked the incident resolved at 21:49 UTC on November 13 (04:49 on November 14 in Thailand) and said occasional errors or delays could still occur while Microsoft completed its recovery. The report identifies the affected tools. Teams can check direct access to Microsoft 365 using their own accounts. Anthropic incident report
Check email and appointments at the source
If Outlook is accessible, open the mailbox you’re authorized to use directly. Search by order number, sender and date range, then open the original message or attachment to verify the latest quantity. For a pickup appointment, open the relevant calendar and check the date, time and organizer in the event itself. If Claude returns an error, treat the information as unverified until someone finds it at the source or confirms it through an approved fallback. If Outlook is also inaccessible, ask an authorized IT administrator to check Service health in the organization’s Microsoft 365 admin center. Microsoft’s mail search guide · Calendar search guide · Service health guide
Keep verified orders moving
In this example, Order A can ship once it clears the usual approval and dispatch checks. Hold Order B and assign someone to contact the customer before the truck leaves. If the original email is unavailable, use the customer number already on file and follow the approved callback procedure. Read back the order number, revised quantity and dispatch slot. If company policy requires written evidence, get confirmation through the designated channel before releasing the goods. If confirmation misses the dispatch cutoff, hold the order for the next run.
Keep a shared log the team can access during the disruption. Record the order number, current status, confirmed quantity and confirmation time, the owner, the channel or evidence used to confirm it and any action already taken. For pending confirmations, record the next follow-up time. Assign one owner per order so sales and the warehouse work from the same status.
Reconcile records before restarting automation
When service returns, have the owner match each entry from the disruption against email, calendar and ERP records using the order number and confirmation time. Check the quantity, pickup appointments and any replies already sent. Hold any item with conflicting evidence until it is resolved. Suppose the customer confirmed 12 units for Order B through the approved process and the warehouse recorded the change. Review the queued actions and cancel any stale instructions before restarting automation. This keeps the old instruction for 20 units from overwriting the update or triggering a second pick. If Claude can send email or edit the calendar in your organization, check what already happened before retrying those actions. Claude’s Microsoft 365 connector guide
For a rehearsal, pick one order with a quantity change. Ask the shift lead to identify who confirms the new quantity, where they check it and who clears the backlog once service returns. Have them do it before the next dispatch deadline.
AI-generated illustration of a fictional dispatch worker confirming an order by phone.
