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Enable Power BI and Power Query to read PST files as data source

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Michael Buckingham on 24 Sep 2017 09:35:19

An enormous amount of dark data is stored in employee email. Being able to ingest this data from PST archives would shine the light on that data.

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Mark on 06 Jul 2020 00:08:09

RE: Enable Power BI and Power Query to read PST files as data source

I think this functionality already exists:
https://www.excelguru.ca/blog/2014/01/09/using-powerquery-with-email/

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:12:52

RE: Enable Power BI and Power Query to read PST files as data source

I'm also looking for similar solution. My mailbox is repository of all the problems faced during execution of project. Problems reported by vendors, Integration Shop and final site are there in emails. At the closure of the project I wanted to make summary of all problems reported and ensure that those are closed. We have a separate PLM system for reporting these problems. However I trust my mailbox more than PLM system !

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Gareth on 05 Jul 2020 23:06:33

RE: Enable Power BI and Power Query to read PST files as data source

The ability to setup "scheduled" monitoring PSTs is a huge benefit, I we can use setup rules to copy emails to separate locations. Emails are a key data source so this would prove to be a key enabler.

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:04:07

RE: Enable Power BI and Power Query to read PST files as data source

Facing the similar problem here. The online inbox has been limited due to corporate policy, and have been moving sent items to offline pst file (or "personal folders") since then. Currently it is a pain to manually checking the required info by hand from Outlook back & forth with each "personal folder" every time i need to produce a report from them.

Being able to query online and offline [email] data is a big must/plus. To push the idea even further, it would be nice to have a connector (maybe something similar to ODBC connector of some sort) to "connect" offline files such as PST files to any analytical system (eg. Power Query, Power BI) or so SSIS can pick it up and import it to SQL server...?

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DirkV on 05 Jul 2020 23:01:08

RE: Enable Power BI and Power Query to read PST files as data source

Telemetry systems send multiple mails per day that need analysing in Excel with Power Query.
Due to capacity limitations on the online (Exchange) mailbox, mails are archived in PST.
Access to these PST is a big must.