Datasets: Outlook Messages

Video tutorial available.


If your IN-SPIRE installation runs on your local computer, you can create a data set from Outlook email messages. If you are running IN-SPIRE from a web browser, the ability to create email message data sets is an optional capability.

Creating a Dataset from Outlook Email Messages

  1. Follow Steps 1-3 of the basic steps for creating a new dataset, selecting Outlook Message Dataset. Click Next.
  2. Enter a name for the data set in the Dataset Name text field.
  3. Open Outlook and highlight email messages you want to include in the dataset. Drag them to the Dataset Editor window. To include messages in local folders that you access from the Outlook's Navigation Pane, open the folder and then highlight the messages.
    It does not work to drag a folder from Outlook's Navigation Pane to the Dataset Wizard window.
  4. A security warning window like this will appear:

    Check the Allow access checkbox, and choose "2 minutes" or more, to allow time for all of the highlighted messages to be copied into the dataset, then click Allow.
  5. The Dataset Wizard will show how many messages were copied.
  6. Click Next. The Fields screen appears.

    Defined for you are "Subject" (which IN-SPIRE by default uses as the "title" field), "Date", "From", "To" and "CC" fields. If there are other fields in your email messages that you want to use for analysis, define them here. An example might be "bcc" or an element in the Internet header. See Fields for more information on how to define fields.
  7. Click Next > to edit Optional Settings if you wish.
  8. Click Finish to start processing. The Processing dialog opens, informing you that the dataset is being processed. Click OK. The dataset appears in the list of datasets in the Dataset Editor window. You can monitor the status of the Dataset as it is processed by clicking the Refresh button at the top of the Dataset Editor window.