Hi everyone! I’m trying to set up a workflow in n8n that pulls contact information from our Exchange server. I need to extract basic contact details like email addresses, first names, and last names, then store this data in a database.
I’ve been looking into using Microsoft Graph API for this task. From what I understand, I should be making API calls to endpoints like the contacts endpoint to retrieve the information I need.
Has anyone successfully connected Exchange to n8n before? I’m wondering about the best approach to authenticate and pull this contact data reliably. Any tips on setting up the workflow or handling the API responses would be really helpful.
Thanks in advance for any guidance!
Just set this up last week! You’ll need contacts.read permissions in Azure at minimum. The Microsoft Graph node works great once OAuth2 is configured. Heads up - contacts come back nested, so map the fields before pushing to your database. Start with a small test batch first!
Been working with Exchange and n8n for about a year. The biggest gotcha? Token refresh - Microsoft Graph tokens die every hour, so your workflow needs to handle auto-refresh or you’re screwed. Set up error handling nodes just for auth failures. Another pain point: Exchange contact fields are inconsistent. Users often have multiple emails scattered across different properties, not just the main email field. The Graph API docs show clean examples, but real data is a mess. Pro tip: add logging to track failed contacts. Makes debugging way easier when stuff breaks.
I ran into the same thing about six months ago when connecting Exchange to n8n. Authentication was the biggest pain - you’ve got to register an app in Azure AD first to get the credentials for Microsoft Graph API. Watch out for Microsoft’s throttling limits too. If you’re dealing with tons of contacts, use pagination and add delays between requests or you’ll hit those limits fast. I batch mine in groups of 100 contacts to avoid getting throttled. Also, validate your contact data before dumping it into your database - Exchange entries can be messy and inconsistent.