Add Categories Drop-Down to Mail Form

[JabalB]

I'm trying to add a Categories dropdown to our standard email form so that we
can use our standard set of categories for handling items.

When I use the new Form, it does not allow me to view the BCC field -- an
important feature for us. The idea is to offer the standard MS Outlook email
form with a Categories dropdown at the bottom (saves alot of dialog click and
makes this visible to everyone).

What am I missing here? Any good templates available here?

Thanks

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You can add the Bcc field to the form as you did the Categories field.

However, what you're missing is the fact that using a custom form to send normal messages generally is a bad idea. It almost guarantees that people outside your organization who don't use Outlook as their mail program won't be able to read any attachments you send them.

Furthermore, do you really want messages sent to recipients who do have Outlook to carry your internal classification categories? Perhaps a more appropriate solution would be a COM add-in that prompts for a category once the message arrives in the sender's Sent Items folder.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[JabalB]

Thanks for your points. The primary use for this form is for reading, though
sending (primarily internal exchange) needs to be an option.

How can we assign the custom form for READ use only? (That is: when sending
mail, the standard mail form would be used, but when reading mail, our custom
form with the Categories dropdown would be used.) This would solve the
problem.

The COM add-in is less desirable because the mail message must be reviewed
before a Category is assigned. Maybe on form close, a COM add-in would work
better, but the simplest solution is simply to give the user access to the
dropdown on the open mail form.

BTW, we are not adding any user-defined fields or data here, if that makes a
difference.

Thanks again.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

While Outlook supports using a registry value to substitute a custom form for the default form, my experience is that it's broken in Outlook 2003 for reading message forms. I haven't tested in SP2, though. See http://www.outlookcode.com/d/newdefaultform.htm if you want to try it.

Another solution would be a COM add-in that automatically changes the MessageClass property for incoming messages to make them use your custom form, but if you're going with a COM add-in, I'd skip the custom form and go with a button in the toolbar to display the Categories dialog.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers