Embedding outlook elements in a web page

[Gekka]

Hi, I am currently doing some development for a corporate portal and I
have a couple of questions about embedding outlook in a portlet. The
solution I have found is to use the outlook view activex control in the
portlet, but this doesnt really give me what I need. What I would like
is to have kind of a summary showing emailaddress, number of unread
messages in the inbox, number of open tasks, etc for the logged on
user. The activex control only gives me the entire view of the inbox,
calendar, etc.

So, can the outlook view control be used to show a summary, like
Outlook Today, on a webpage or do I have to resort to writing my own
control to show this?

I currently use this piece of code to include the inbox, something
similar would be nice

<object classid='clsid:0006F063-0000-0000-C000-000000000046'
id='ovInbox' width='300' height='300' codebase='outlctlx.CAB'>
<param name='Folder' value='Inbox'>
<param name='Namespace' value='MAPI'>
<param name='Restriction' value>
<param name='DeferUpdate' value='0'>
</object>

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

No, the OVC shows a folder just like Outlook does and is also limited to working only on machines where Outlook is installed and the user is running Outlook. For a corporate portal, you may want to access data from the Exchange server directly, using WebDAV, to avoid that client requirement.

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

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

 

[Gekka]

Thanks for your reply, Sue. Coming from the Java sphere, I'm really new
to all kind of MS technology and APIs.

The problem here is that this portal is Oracle and here's my idea for a
new approach:

I'll create a webservice using Collaboration Data Objects where Outlook
Web Access is running, exposing the needed functionality, like number
of unread mails, todays appointments, etc. Then I'll use this
webservice in an OmniPortlet in Oracle to show the data.

Would this have any authentication implications as one of the
requirements for the portal is secure SSO (basic authentication not
allowed)?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

That's probably a question better posed to the microsoft.public.exchange.development group.

Exchange 2007, BTW, will offer access to its data via web services natively. For Exchange 2000/2003, I think there are some web service examples in the Exchange SDK.

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

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