Microsoft Exchange Issue

[nirvana_moksh]

Hello All, I have been trying to think of a solution for a issue that I am currently running into and would like to see if anyone has tried this before. I have a PBI report which uses the Microsoft Exchange Online connector to connect to 7 shared mailboxes and each of these shared Mailboxes are of a size ranging from 2-4 GB each for grabbing all emails from these mailboxes. The issue is that within this connector there is no way to define to get only 'Inbox' emails and so it grabs ALL emails (Junk, Archived, Sent etc) making the refresh time out (there is no way to set time out to a higher time either). So what I am trying to do is to grab all these emails from all mailboxes and dump it into a SQL DB to offload the processing part. From what I found is to use Microsoft Graph API which can make these calls as this is a bridge to all O365 services and more. Another solution I thought of was having Data Flows, but since this a PROD report there is a lot of hesitation to using something which is in Preview. I am open to suggestions and some more clarity on usage of Microsoft Graph API. Thank You

[v-jiascu-msft]

Hi @nirvana_moksh,

Since the total size of all the 7 mailboxes is big, using middle storage is a good idea. How about filtering them out in the Query Editor? Please refer to the snapshot below. Finally, only the inbox is loaded.

Best Regards,
Dale

[nirvana_moksh]

@v-jiascu-msftCould you expand on what you meant by "middle storage"? Also, wont doing this filter to "\Inbox\", first load all data for all folders and then filter to '\Inbox\" opposed to the "Navigation" process which first defines the whole path and then starts the download for that path instead?

Thank You

[v-jiascu-msft]

Hi @nirvana_moksh,

My bad. I didn't make it clear. It's exactly what have done. Retrieve all the emails to a SQL database then connect to it from the Desktop. You can filter the email before you dump them into the DB. 

Because the "Navigation" process doesn't provide a filter function. So we load all the previews and then filter them. It's a preview of data in the Query Editor. It's fine to load the whole data. You can give it a try anyway.

Best Regards,
Dale

[nirvana_moksh]

@v-jiascu-msft- I was thinking of doing the same using SSIS, but SSIS does not have a direct connector to connect to these Mailboxes, so I came across Microsoft Graph API, would you be able to suggest more on what will be the correct way? Maybe using Graph API in conjunction with SQL DB and Power BI?

[v-jiascu-msft]

Hi @nirvana_moksh,

After surfing the graph/overview, I find the Graph API is the bridge between the emails and the SQL DB. Power BI can work directly with SQL DB. So the process could be as follows. 

1. Fetch emails with Graph API and store in a SQL DB. Filter the emails if possible. 

2. Connect to the SQL DB from Power BI. 

Best Regards,
Dale