Adding an "active" folder to Outlook

[Vladimir Chtchetkine]

Hi everyone!
I want to add a new folder to MS Outlook's "Folder list"
(actually, a tree of folders) through which I want to
represent some database items that expose "email-like"
behavior. What's the best approach to do that? Should I
develop an add-in or there are other options? In any case
I would appreciate if you can point me to a relevant
documentation/samples/forums/newsgroup etc.

TIA,

Vladimir

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

You can only add "real" folders to Outlook and to the folder list. Or
rather, once you add a MAPIFolder it will show up in the folder list.

You are also limited in what you can show in a folder view to items in that
folder.

To do anything else you can try using a folder home page and use a grid
control or the Outlook View Control. See
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/ovc.htm for information on that.

 

[Vladimir Chtchetkine]

Thanks, Ken!

Can I get a bit more tech info? Implementing MAPIFolder
interface by myself seem to be "too brutal" approach
because it leaves a lot of places for "misunderstating in
expected behavior" with the rest of the system. Here is
(on the very high level) description of what I want to do:
I have a database of items that expose e-mail like
behavior. I.e. there is an "author" of an item and there
is a list of users who are supposed to be notified when
that item is added (to the DB) or when it changes.Each
item has some text (and other props associated with it).
In essence, "add" is like "new mail" and "change" is
like "reply". The idea is to integrate viewing/management
of this DB into Outlook.
So, as far as UI (or how I would picture it) goes, there
should be a new folder (or a tree of folders) in
Outlook's "folder list" pane. When you select that folder
you should see a list of items from my DB.
The question(s) is (are) if this is doable and if so,
how? Should it be an add-in that creates a MAPIFolder
instance and adds it to Outlook's _Folders (high level
design)? This seems to be very resource consuming path
because this makes me implementing 100% of each and every
interface starting with MAPIFolder and whole bunch of
others that this folder should contain.
So, where should I look? What would be the best
solution/design?

Thanks again,

Vladimir

 

[SFAxess]

Perhaps making an Outlook Add-in that integrates your DB rather than trying
to integrate Outlook's complex functionality into your DB would be easier.

If the majority of your DB is dealing with these Outlook functions, I would
suggest using Outlook as your host application.
~sfaxess

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I would rule out trying to implement a custom type of folder. I would just
add a standard folder and set the folder properties to display a folder home
page. That home page would be an HTML page, just like a Web page. You can
use controls on that page, such as a grid control, to display items from
your database, which would be read in using some form of connection such as
ADO.

An alternative is to actually synch your database with Outlook and create an
Outlook item for every database row. Your code would then have to trigger on
changes in the database and also on the Items_ events (Add, Change and
Remove).

Creating something like a custom folder would entail use of Extended MAPI
and complete implementation of all needed properties, events and methods.
That would have to be done using C++ or Delphi, the only languages you can
use to code Extended MAPI. Not at all a trivial task. If you want this
completed sometime in the next year or so I'd recommend a different route.