Analyze Outlook Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Outlook data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Outlook, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Outlook in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Outlook from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
2. Select "Outlook"
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Outlook.

   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;
   

   

Add Outlook Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Outlook, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Outlook data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
2. Select the Outlook connection
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Outlook from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Outlook Connection and Resource(s)

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize Outlook data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Outlook data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Outlook (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Outlook data in tools that consume OData APIs.