Visualize Live Email Data in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get access to Email data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to use CData Connect to create a live connection to Email, connect to Email data from Power BI and then create reports on Email data in Power BI.

Configure Email Connectivity for Power BI

Connectivity to Email from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Email data from Power BI, we start by creating and configuring a Email connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Email" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Email.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid credentials. The Server must be specified to retrieve emails and the SMTPServer must be specified to send emails.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Email Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Email data from Power BI.

Query Email Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull Email data into the report:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Online Services -> CData Connect AI and click "Connect"
2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect AI account
3. After signing in, click "Connect"
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog
5. Click Load to establish the connection to your Email data from Power BI

Create Email Data Visualizations

After connecting to the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize along with the chart type.

Click Refresh to synchronize your report with any changes to the data.

Live Access to Email Data from Data Applications

With CData Connect AI you have a direct connection to Email data from Power BI. You can import more data, create new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Email data.

To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Email) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect AI page and start a free trial.