Viewing Microsoft Exchange Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Exchange, you gain access to live Microsoft Exchange data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve and update Microsoft Exchange data. This article will walk through connecting to Microsoft Exchange using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to Microsoft Exchange

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.

Specify the User and Password to connect to Exchange. Additionally, specify the address of the Exchange server you are connecting to and the Platform associated with the server.

Connecting to Microsoft Exchange Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying Microsoft Exchange data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Microsoft Exchange and a new VCL Forms Application:

1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
3. Click Add New Connection.
4. Enter a name for the connection.
5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Microsoft Exchange.
6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.

7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: Contacts) onto the form.

8. Select the ContactsTable object on the form and set the Active property to true.

9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the Contacts data.