Disappearing Field Values on Custom Form

[Michael fuerst]

I have a problem with the retention of user defined fields as a
message progresses among users.

First the short version of my problem, in case such is enough for
someone to offer advice.

An employee can use a custom form stored in the Organizational Forms
library to request vacation time. The employee sends this to a
special mailbox to which his/her supervisor has access. The
supervisor opens up the message, clicks either an Approved or
Disapproved check box, and then clicks Reply and Send. At each stage
code behind the form changes some visible fields and checks
consistency of user entries. The problem is that when the requesting
employee opens up the supervisor's response, the values of most of the
form's user-defined fields are now blank.


Now the longer version of my problem with more technical details:

I keep the form as an .oft file on my computer and publish it to the
Organization Forms Library. This form
(a) Has 30 or so user-defined fields all placed on the form's Message
page. Its fields include ones name Approved, Disapproved, Requestor,
RequestDate, Reviewer, ReviewDate. The standard field message has
been removed
(b)Does not use separate Edit Compose and Edit Read Pages
(c)Has an .oft file size of 88 KB
(d)Does NOT have "Send From Definition with Item" checked, so that
code within the form can run.

When the employee opens the form to make a vacation time request,
VBSCRIPT code completes two visible fields containing the employee's
name and the current date/time (Requestor and RequestDate). The
VBSCRIPT also does various validity checks on the various other fields
filled in by the employee

The employee sends the completed form to a special Inbox, which I'll
refer to as VacationRequest. This Inbox has no custom fields.
Messages arriving in this Inbox have a size of about 11KB, which
indicates, as expected, that the form definition has not been saved
with the message.

The employee's supervisor, who has access to the VacationRequest
Inbox, opens the message from the employee, clicks either the Approved
or Disapproved checkbox (each associated with a field of the same
name), upon which VBSCRIPT code fills in two visible fields containing
the supervisor's name and the current date/time (Reviewer and
ReviewDate). The supervisor then clicks Reply then Send, which sends
the message back to the requesting employee, and puts a copy of the
sent message into the supervisor's personal Sent Items folder. The
now changed message in the VacationRequest Inbox correctly displays
the supervisor's changes.

The messages arriving in the employee's Inbox and the supervisor's
Sent Items folder have 15KB. The several fields changed by the
supervisor cannot account for the 4KB growth.

All of the above messages have a Message Class of
IPM.Note.test_eleave, where test_eleave is the name of the custom
form. Thus the form definition is not being saved with the messages.

My problem is that when the requesting employee opens up the message
in his/her Inbox and when the supervisor opens up the resulting Sent
Items message, Outlook has lost the values of all the user defined
fields except three of the four fields affected by the supervisor:
Approved, Disapproved and RequestDate. (The Reviewer field, also
affected by the supervisor, did turn to blank.)

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

First of all, there is a forms programming group that is a better choice for
a question like this (microsoft.public.outlook.program_forms).

You don't say which version of Outlook you are using or if you have your
controls bound to user properties to preserve their values. Also, depending
on the version of Outlook some things like setting PossibleValues for a
combo or listbox in code will one-off a form, although a 4K growth in form
size might or might not mean anything. If the message class hasn't reverted
to the standard message class the form isn't one-offed.

It's hard to say from your description, and without seeing any of your code,
why data is being lost. When the user presses Reply is the new reply form
preserving the field values in user properties before the item is sent and
when it is received? If this were my form I'd be checking things like that
at each step of the process.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your response Ken.

I am using Outlook 2002.
The form in question has neither Listboxes nor Comboboxes.

When ther supervisor presses the Reply button, the fields are filled in
correctly.
The fields are not filled in correctly when the employee receives the reply,
nor when the supervisor reads the sent message from his/her Sent message
folder



--
Michael Fuerst
802 N Broadway
Urbana IL 61801

217-239-5844