Customize outlook appoitment scheduling

[GSK]

In Outlook 2003, Under Calendar - > New Appoitment -> Scheduling, I wanto to
add a custom button, invoke a custom form on clicking the button where user
filter the outlook resources based on City /Last Name, FirstName and when
selecting a resource it should populate it under the "All Attendees" in
scheduling window.
Briefly my doubts are :
1. How to add a custom button to the outlook scheduling page.
2. On selecting a resouce how to populate it back to scheduling page.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Eric Legault [MVP - Outlook]]

Unfortunately, you cannot customize the Scheduling page on a Meeting Request
form. But once you build your form to present the user with a display of
resources to choose from, you can create an instance of your custom form by
adding an instance of it to the Items collection for the folder where the
form is published:

Set objMyForm = objMyFolder.Items.Add("IPM.MyCustomForm")
objMyForm.Display

"Dialog" forms like the one you describe for your solution don't need to be
saved, so technically you aren't adding anything to the collection.

So once the user has made their selection, you can take the selected
resource names and add them to a Recipients collection like the following
example from Outlook VBA Help:

Set myItem = myOlApp.CreateItem(olAppointmentItem)
myItem.MeetingStatus = olMeeting
myItem.Subject = "Strategy Meeting"
myItem.Location = "Conference Room B"
myItem.Start = #9/24/97 1:30:00 PM#
myItem.Duration = 90
Set myRequiredAttendee = myItem.Recipients.Add("Nate _
Sun")
myRequiredAttendee.Type = olRequired
Set myOptionalAttendee = myItem.Recipients.Add("Kevin _
Kennedy")
myOptionalAttendee.Type = olOptional
Set myResourceAttendee = _
myItem.Recipients.Add("Conference Room B")
myResourceAttendee.Type = olResource
myItem.Send

 

[GSK]

Hi Eric, Thanks for your reply.
I want to use the existing Outlook appointment and scheduling page and we
want to build some custom search on top of it i.e to filter the Meeting rooms
based on the entity resource location. Will it be possible to create a tab in
the appointment form? Or any other way of integrating this custom
implementation in the existing outlook appointment/scheduling form?
Thanks in advance.

Regards,
GSK

 

[Eric Legault [MVP - Outlook]]

You can most certainly add a few custom tabs on an Appointment form to
implement whatever UI you want. Are you just trying to confirm that this is
possible?

--
Eric Legault - Outlook MVP, MCDBA, MCTS (SharePoint programming, etc.)
Try Picture Attachments Wizard for Outlook:
http://www.collaborativeinnovations.ca
Blog: http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/

 

[GSK]

Thanks Eric. Initially I was just trying to confirm whether is't possible to
add custom tab to the existing Meeting form. As you have said "yes" I will
try creating a tab page.
Could you please tell me know whether I can do the following in Custom tab
- Adding controls like textbox,button and clicking the button query the
resource address details from GAL.
I have one more question
I have already written a vb application which uses CDO objects and query the
address details from GAL for an entity. But I found it takes very long time
to query and in Outlook direct mail query (entering the name and Ctrl +K) its
much faster.
Could you please let me know how to improve the query speed.
Thanks very much for your advice and support.

Regards
GSK

 

[Eric Legault [MVP - Outlook]]

All of the controls you mention can be used on a custom Outlook form - take a
look at what is in the toolbox. You can also insert just about any ActiveX
control that is registered on your development computer.

If you want to resolve a recipient, take a look at Recipient.Resolve method
- this can't get any faster as it utilizes the same "CTRL+K" lookup that
Outlook uses. No CDO required, unless you need to get properties for an
address in the GAL other than name or e-mail.

--
Eric Legault - Outlook MVP, MCDBA, MCTS (SharePoint programming, etc.)
Try Picture Attachments Wizard for Outlook:
http://www.collaborativeinnovations.ca
Blog: http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/

 

[GSK]

Thanks Eric.
I have added a new Meeting Request Form from Design Form section. In one of
the tabs (P.2) I have placed some controls (textbox, button,labels) and
"Required Attendees" field from Field Chooser options.
How can I add the VB code to the form to invoke the button click event and
populate the Required Attendees field ? When I do Alt + F11, am not able to
access the form elements.

Kindly let me know how to add code and populate the Required Attendees field
programatically.

Thanks very much for your help and support.

Regards,
GSK