Automated Continuous Outlook Replication to Azure SQL Database

Always-on applications rely on automatic failover capabilities and real-time data access. CData Sync integrates live Outlook data into your Azure SQL Database instance, allowing you to consolidate all of your data into a single location for archiving, reporting, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and more.

Configure Azure SQL Database as a Replication Destination

Using CData Sync, you can replicate Outlook data to Azure SQL Database. To add a replication destination, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select the Destinations tab and locate the Azure SQL Database connector.
3. Click the Configure Connection icon at the end of that row to open the New Connection page. If the Configure Connection icon is not available, click the Download Connector icon to install the Azure SQL Database connector. For more information about installing new connectors, see Connections in the Help documentation.
4. To connect to Azure SQL database, set the following connection properties:
   • Connection Name: Enter a connection name of your choice for the Azure SQL database connection.
   • Server: Enter the host name or IP of the server that hosts the Azure SQL database.
   • Port: Enter the port number of the server that hosts the Azure SQL database. The default port value is 1433
   • Database: Enter the name of the database.
   • Auth Scheme: Select the authentication scheme. The default auth scheme is SqlPassword.
   • User: Enter the user ID provided for authentication with the Azure SQL database.
   • Password: Enter the password provided for authentication with the Azure SQL database.

5. Once connected, click Create & Test to create, test and save the connection.

You are now connected to Azure SQL database and can use it as both a source and a destination.

NOTE: You can use the Label feature to add a label for a source or a destination.

In this article, we will demonstrate how to load Outlook data into Azure SQL database and utilize it as a destination.

Configure the Outlook Connection

You can configure a connection to Outlook from the Connections tab. To add a connection to your Outlook account, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select a source (Outlook).
3. Configure the connection properties.
   
   

   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;
   

   
4. Click Connect to Outlook to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save & Test to save the changes.

Configure Replication Queries

CData Sync enables you to control replication with a point-and-click interface and with SQL queries. For each replication you wish to configure, navigate to the Jobs tab and click Add Job. Select the Source and Destination for your replication.

Replicate Entire Tables

To replicate an entire table, navigate to the Task tab in the Job, click Add Tasks, choose the table(s) from the list of Outlook tables you wish to replicate into Azure SQL database, and click Add Tasks again.

Customize Your Replication

You can use the Columns and Query tabs of a task to customize your replication. The Columns tab allows you to specify which columns to replicate, rename the columns at the destination, and even perform operations on the source data before replicating. The Query tab allows you to add filters, grouping, and sorting to the replication with the help of SQL queries.

Schedule Your Replication

Select the Overview tab in the Job, and click Configure under Schedule. You can schedule a job to run automatically by configuring it to run at specified intervals, ranging from once every 10 minutes to once every month.

Once you have configured the replication job, click Save Changes. You can configure any number of jobs to manage the replication of your Outlook data to Azure SQL database.

Run the Replication Job

Once all the required configurations are made for the job, select the Outlook table you wish to replicate and click Run. After the replication completes successfully, a notification appears, showing the time taken to run the job and the number of rows replicated.

Free Trial & More Information

Now that you have seen how to replicate Outlook data into Azure SQL Database, visit our CData Sync page to explore more about CData Sync and download a free 30-day trial. Start consolidating your enterprise data today!

As always, our world-class Support Team is ready to answer any questions you may have.