Analyze Microsoft Teams Data in R



Create data visualizations and use high-performance statistical functions to analyze Microsoft Teams data in Microsoft R Open.

Access Microsoft Teams data with pure R script and standard SQL. You can use the CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Teams and the RODBC package to work with remote Microsoft Teams data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Microsoft Teams data and visualize Microsoft Teams data in R.

Install R

You can complement the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open (MRO).

Connect to Microsoft Teams as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Microsoft Teams follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

You can connect to MS Teams using the embedded OAuth connectivity. When you connect, the MS Teams OAuth endpoint opens in your browser. Log in and grant permissions to complete the OAuth process. See the OAuth section in the online Help documentation for more information on other OAuth authentication flows.

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.

Windows

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.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Teams in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

[CData MSTeams Source] Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Teams Description = My Description OAuthClientId = MyApplicationId OAuthClientSecret = MySecretKey CallbackURL = http://localhost:33333

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Load the RODBC Package

To use the driver, download the RODBC package. In RStudio, click Tools -> Install Packages and enter RODBC in the Packages box.

After installing the RODBC package, the following line loads the package:

library(RODBC)

Note: This article uses RODBC version 1.3-12. Using Microsoft R Open, you can test with the same version, using the checkpoint capabilities of Microsoft's MRAN repository. The checkpoint command enables you to install packages from a snapshot of the CRAN repository, hosted on the MRAN repository. The snapshot taken Jan. 1, 2016 contains version 1.3-12.

library(checkpoint) checkpoint("2016-01-01")

Connect to Microsoft Teams Data as an ODBC Data Source

You can connect to a DSN in R with the following line:

conn <- odbcConnect("CData MSTeams Source")

Schema Discovery

The driver models Microsoft Teams APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:

sqlTables(conn)

Execute SQL Queries

Use the sqlQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the Microsoft Teams API.

teams <- sqlQuery(conn, "SELECT subject, location_displayName FROM Teams WHERE Id = 'Jq74mCczmFXk1tC10GB'", believeNRows=FALSE, rows_at_time=1)

You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:

View(teams)

Plot Microsoft Teams Data

You can now analyze Microsoft Teams data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:

par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2)) barplot(teams$location_displayName, main="Microsoft Teams Teams", names.arg = teams$subject, horiz=TRUE)

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Microsoft Teams ODBC Driver to get started:

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Learn more:

Microsoft Teams Icon Microsoft Teams ODBC Driver

The Microsoft Teams ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from Microsoft Teams, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Microsoft Teams data like you would a database - read, write, and update Microsoft Teams Groups, Teams, Channels, Messages, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.