Automating Outlook - Mail and Calendar

[msrado]

Hello all,

We are migrating from Groupwise 5.5 to Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2003.
My group has created some Visual Basic programs that automate Groupwise
for the purpose of creating and sending e-mail, posting personal
appointments, and conducting "busy searches" on the Groupwise calendar.

I've seen a lot of documentation floating around about the Outlook API,
so I assume its fairly straight-forward to program similar functions
from VB to Outlook. I was told that the calendar operations would have
to go against the Exchange server - not Outlook. Is that correct? Or
would calendar operations against Outlook eventually synchronize with
the Exchange server?

Thanks in advance,
Robin

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

If users are keeping their calendar in their Exchange mailboxes (rather than in a .pst file), then what OUtlook sees as the default calendar *is* what's on the server.

 

[msrado]

Thanks Sue! That's what I was hoping to hear.

I have one more question. In GroupWise, we have an address book
containing company e-mail addresses. (There are additional books for
personal groups and frequent contacts, too.) There must be a similar
function in Outlook/Exchange. Can I query it for an e-mail address via
an API call? If so, do I query with last name, login ID, something
else? If its based on last name, can I resolve ambiguous last names?
(Alright, that was more than one question ... )

Thanks again,
Robin

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook can display two types of group address lists -- (a) those maintained in Active Directory and exposed through Outlook's address book as the Global Address List and its sublists and (b) contacts lists in the Public Folders\All Public Folders hierarchy. Both can be accessed programmatically, the exact details varying, of course, with the particulars of the application, as well as the Outlook client version. There is a newsgroup specifically for general Outlook programming issues "down the hall" at microsoft.public.outlook.program_vba or, via web interface, at http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.outlook.program_vba