Access Live Outlook Data in SAS JMP via ODBC
You can use the CData API Driver for ODBC to integrate live data into your statistical analysis with SAS JMP. The driver proxies your queries directly to the Outlook API, ensuring that your analysis reflects any changes to the data. The CData ODBC Driver supports the standard SQL used by JMP in the background as you design reports.
This article shows how to access Outlook data into a report and create data visualization. It also shows how to use SQL to query Outlook data from the JMP Query Builder.
Access Outlook Data as an ODBC Data Source
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.
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
- Log in to the Azure Portal.
- Navigate to Azure Active Directory > App registrations.
- Click New registration to create a new application.
- Enter an application name and select the appropriate account types.
- Set the Redirect URI to your application's callback URL (e.g., http://localhost:33333 for desktop apps).
- Click Register to create the application.
- On the application overview page, copy the Application (client) ID - this is your OAuthClientId.
- Navigate to Certificates & secrets and create a new client secret.
- Copy the client secret value - this is your OAuthClientSecret.
- 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
- 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;
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.
Import Outlook Data with the Query Builder
After you have created the Outlook DSN, you can use SQL to invoke the capabilities of the Outlook API. Follow the steps below to execute some supported queries in the Query Builder:
- In SAS JMP, click File -> Database -> Query Builder. The Select Database Connection dialog is displayed.
- Click New Connection.
- On the Machine Data Source tab, select the ODBC DSN you configured and then click Next.
- The Select Tables for Query dialog is displayed and in the Available Tables section, select a table and click Primary. After choosing the primary table, click Build Query to open the Query Builder.
- As you drag Available Columns to the Included Columns tab, the underlying SQL query is updated and you can view the generated SQL Query in the SQL tab.
- Click Run Query to display the data.
- To refresh the results with the current data, right-click Update from Database and click Run Script.
Visualize Outlook Data
After importing, you can use the Graph Builder to create graphs visually. To open the Graph Builder, click the Graph Builder button in the toolbar.
- Drag a dimension column onto the x axis. For example, .
- Drag a measure column onto the y axis. For example, .
- Select a chart type. For example, a bar chart.