Discover how a bimodal integration strategy can address the major data management challenges facing your organization today.
Get the Report →Use the CData ODBC Driver for Office 365 in MicroStrategy Desktop
Connect to Office 365 data in MicroStrategy Desktop using the CData ODBC Driver for Office 365.
MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for Office 365, you gain database-like access to live Office 365 data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through adding Office 365 as a data source in MicroStrategy Desktop and creating a simple visualization of Office 365 data.
The CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Office 365 data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to Office 365, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Office 365 and utilizes the embedded SQL Engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Office 365 data using native MicroStrategy data types.
Connect to Office 365 as an ODBC Data Source
Information for connecting to Office 365 follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.
Office 365 uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate requests, you will need to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and OAuthCallbackURL by registering an app with Office 365. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.
When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.
Windows
If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.
Linux
If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Office 365 in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.
/etc/odbc.ini
[CData Office365 Sys]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Office 365
Description = My Description
OAuthClientId = MyApplicationId
OAuthClientSecret = MyAppKey
OAuthCallbackURL = http://localhost:33333
For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).
Connect to and Visualize Office 365 Data using MicroStrategy Desktop
In addition to connecting Office 365 in MicroStrategy enterprise products, you can connect to Office 365 in MicroStrategy Desktop. Follow the steps below to add Office 365 data as a dataset and create visualizations and reports of Office 365 data.
- Open MicroStrategy Desktop and create a new dossier.
- In the datasets panel, click New Data, select Databases, and select Type a Query as the Import Option.
- Add a new data source and choose DSN data sources.
- Choose the DSN you previously configured (likely CData Office365 Sys) and select Generic DBMS in the Version menu.
- Set the User and Password properties for the DSN (or use placeholder values) and name the data source.
- Select the new database instance to view the tables. You may need to manually click the search icon in the Available Tables section to see the tables.
- Create a SQL query for the Office 365 data (see below) and click Execute SQL to test the query.
SELECT * FROM Files
NOTE: Since we create a live connection, we can execute a SELECT * query and utilize the filtering and aggregation features native to the MicroStrategy products. - Click Finish and choose to connect live.
- Choose a visualization, choose fields to display (data types are discovered automatically through dynamic metadata discovery) and apply any filters to create a new visualization of Office 365 data. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to Office 365, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL Engine embedded in the driver.
- Once you are finished configuring the dossier, click File -> Save.
Using the CData ODBC Driver for Office 365 in MicroStrategy Desktop, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on Office 365 data. Read our other articles on connecting to Office 365 in MicroStrategy and connecting to Office 365 in MicroStrategy Web for more examples.