can this be done with Outlook

[Ron Carruthers]

Medical services business wishes to maintain an appointment database for four
technicians, linking Calendar to a patient database, hopefully in a public
contacts folder. Clerical staff would input appointments for four or five
technicians, inputting patient names from the public Contacts folder and
assigning them a time at fifteen minute intervals for one of four technicians.

Is Outlook with Exchange capable of this? Does this involve minor or major
development work? What textbooks best describe the necessary work?

Thanks

Ron Carruthers

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Yes, this can be done, probably without too much work. In addition to the book mentioned in my signature, you'll find links to others on my outlookcode.com site.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

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

 

[Ron Carruthers]

Hello Sue

Thanks for your reply. I did purchase Thomas Rizzo's book. It will be a
challenging read for me!

Since my original post, my client's requirements have increased. They would
like to remove the personal calendar of some of the users and include an
integrated database with numerous additional fields of patient detail.

I talked with a local IT consultant professional who said it could not be
done without Access or some other database software.

We are currently looking at Customer Appointment Manager from Atlas Business
Solutions but the cost is putting my customer off. This uses an Access
runtime and has an appearance very much like Outlook with side by side
Calendars.

I would like to have spoken to someone with programming experience that
might give me a price on doing this with Outlook/EXchange if it can be done
now that the requirements are larger.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

It is not possible to remove any of the default folders from a user's mailbox, although it would be possible to:

1) Show a folder home page (web page) instead of the normal views of the Calendar folder's contents

2) Every time the user creates a new appointment in the Calendar folder, do something with that appointment (see the MAPIFolder.Items.Add event).

or

-- Use a custom appointment form in the Calendar to capture more information (but it would not be possible to display it on the calendar view itself, only in individual items)

I think you'll have a hard time getting anyone to quote a price without a detailed specification.

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

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

 

[Ron Carruthers]

Thanks, Sue.

It is not possible to remove any of the default folders from a user's mailbox, although it would be possible to:

1) Show a folder home page (web page) instead of the normal views of the Calendar folder's contents

2) Every time the user creates a new appointment in the Calendar folder, do something with that appointment (see the MAPIFolder.Items.Add event).

or

-- Use a custom appointment form in the Calendar to capture more information (but it would not be possible to display it on the calendar view itself, only in individual items)

I think you'll have a hard time getting anyone to quote a price without a detailed specification.

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

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