Using the CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Exchange in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Exchange from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Exchange as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Microsoft Exchange

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

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.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData Exchange Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Exchange
Description = My Description
User = '[email protected]'
Password = 'myPassword'
Server = 'https://outlook.office365.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx'
Platform = 'Exchange_Online'

Execute SQL to Microsoft Exchange

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for Exchange};User = '[email protected]';Password = 'myPassword';Server = 'https://outlook.office365.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx';Platform = 'Exchange_Online';')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT GivenName, Size FROM Contacts WHERE BusinnessAddress_City = 'Raleigh'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.GivenName, row.Size)

After connecting to Microsoft Exchange in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Microsoft Exchange data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].