ETL Outlook in Oracle Data Integrator

Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to connect to Outlook: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for Outlook connects real-time Outlook data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.

JDBC connectivity enables you to work with Outlook just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the Outlook APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.

This article covers a JDBC-based ETL -- Outlook to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of Outlook entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.

Install the Driver

To install the driver, copy the driver JAR (cdata.jdbc.api.jar) and .lic file (cdata.jdbc.api.lic), located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:

• UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
• UNIX/Linux with Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib and $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
• Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
• Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\odi\oracledi\userlib and %APPDATA%\odi\agent\lib

Restart ODI to complete the installation.

Reverse Engineer a Model

Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of Outlook data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time Outlook data and create mappings based on Outlook tables.

1. In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects.
2. On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter API.
   • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
   • Logical Schema: Enter API.
   • Context: Select Global.
   
3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter API.
   • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
   • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver
   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

     Using OAuth Authentication

     Microsoft Graph API uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication. You must register an application in the Microsoft Azure Portal to obtain OAuth credentials (Client ID and Client Secret).

     Obtaining OAuth Credentials

     1. Log in to the Azure Portal.
     2. Navigate to Azure Active Directory > App registrations.
     3. Click New registration to create a new application.
     4. Enter an application name and select the appropriate account types.
     5. Set the Redirect URI to your application's callback URL (e.g., http://localhost:33333 for desktop apps).
     6. Click Register to create the application.
     7. On the application overview page, copy the Application (client) ID - this is your OAuthClientId.
     8. Navigate to Certificates & secrets and create a new client secret.
     9. Copy the client secret value - this is your OAuthClientSecret.
     10. Navigate to API permissions and add the required Microsoft Graph API permissions:
         • Mail.Read - For accessing email messages
         • Contacts.Read - For accessing contacts
         • Calendars.Read - For accessing calendar events
         • Tasks.Read - For accessing To Do tasks
         • offline_access - For obtaining refresh tokens
     11. Click Grant admin consent to grant these permissions.

     Connecting with OAuth

     After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

     • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
     • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. The CData API Profile for Outlook will automatically walk through the OAuth process in order to obtain the access token.
     • OAuthClientId: Set this to the Application (client) ID from Azure Portal.
     • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret value from Azure Portal.
     • TenantId: Set this to your Azure AD tenant identifier (GUID or domain name like 'contoso.onmicrosoft.com').
     • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app registration (e.g., http://localhost:33333 for desktop apps).

     Example connection string

     Profile=C:\profiles\Outlook.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;TenantId=your_tenant_id;CallbackUrl=http://localhost:33333;
     

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Outlook JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.jar
     

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     

     Below is a typical connection string:

     jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Outlook.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;TenantId=your_tenant_id;CallbackUrl=http://localhost:33333;
     

   
4. On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
   • Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
   • Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for Outlook, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter API.
   • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for Outlook, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter API.
   
5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for Outlook tables.

Edit and Save Outlook Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with Outlook data in ODI. To view Outlook data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click View data.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from Outlook. You will load CalendarGroupCalendars entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.

1. Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.

   Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:

   sqlplus / as sysdba
   

2. Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the CalendarGroupCalendars table in Outlook:

   CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_CALENDARGROUPCALENDARS ( NUMBER(20,0), VARCHAR2(255));
   

3. In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
4. Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_CALENDARGROUPCALENDARS table is added to the model.
5. Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
6. Drag the TRG_CALENDARGROUPCALENDARS table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
7. Drag the CalendarGroupCalendars table from the Outlook model onto the mapping.
8. Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
9. Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click CALENDARGROUPCALENDARS_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
10. In the CALENDARGROUPCALENDARS_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab.

You can then run the mapping to load Outlook data into Oracle.