Internet Users not able to see public Outlook custom forms

[Adrian]

I have a couple of simple custom forms that I have published to our
Organisational Forms Library that we also need to send to external,
non Exchange, users.

Looking at previous answers it sounded quite simple: send an OFT file
to the Internet users, have them publish it to their Personal Library
and it all works ... except it hasn't :-(

I also tried sending a version with the form definition embedded but
that doesn't seem to work either. In all cases they simply receive a
blank message showing only the sender, subject and our company
disclaimer.

Apart from the recipient fields the Form contains only custom fields
(there is no message body for example) and, in the last test, there is
no coding at all apart from some very basic field validation. All
users are running Windows XP (Home or Professional) and Outlook 2003
SP2.

The instructions I gave (which I assume were followed!) were:

--- quote ---
Save the attached OFT file somewhere memorable, like 'My Documents'

Go to Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options | Custom Forms |
Manage Forms and select the 'Clear Cache' option.

Go to New | Choose Form, select 'User Templates in File System'

Browse to the folder you saved the form in and open the 'HotelTEST'
form

Complete and send the Form to yourself and to me.

Go to Tools | Forms | Design a Form, select 'User Templates in File
System'

Browse to the folder you saved the form in and open the 'HotelTEST'
form - make a note of the Display and Form names.

Select Tools | Forms | Publish Forms As

Ensure 'Personal Forms Library' is selected and type in the same
Display and Form names as noted earlier

If you get a message asking you "Save form definition with the item"
select NO

If prompted to 'Save changes' select YES

--- end quote ---

The external users can create a new form message, send it to me and I
can see it but when I send the same form from our organisational
library all they see is the corporate disclaimer that our Exchange
server automatically adds to all outgoing messages.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong and how I can get these forms out to
these external users?

Thanks

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Talk to your Exchange administrator about the possibility that the server is stripping the TNEF content on outgoing messages, including the information about the custom form. Also make sure that the version you published on your end has the "send form definition with item" box on the (Properties) page in design mode unchecked and check to make sure that external recipients have published the form with the identical message class.

 

[Hollis Paul]

The external users can create a new form message, send it to me and I
can see it but when I send the same form from our organisational
library all they see is the corporate disclaimer that our Exchange
server automatically adds to all outgoing messages.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong and how I can get these forms out to
these external users?

Something is stripping off the custom data, which is usually contained
in the winmail.dat )or some such name) attachment. It could be their
incoming server, or it could be your outgoing server. If it is your
outgoing server, then the problem is usually solved by forcing Outlook
to use the TNEF wrapper (Don't Ask!). This is usually accomplished by
forcing Outlook to send the message in rtf format: go to the contacts
data item for your recipient, right-click the email address that you
are using, and choose properties. On older versions there is a check
box at the bottom of the properties panel that is labeled always send
to this recipient using rtf. For Outlook 2003 and beyond, there is a
dropdown listbox that is labeled something like Mail Format, and one of
the choices is rtf format. Select that and test your form again.

 

[Adrian]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I have tried Paul's suggestion but that didn't work ... however I suspect I
made a mistake in setting up the properties! I am trying again now and will
report back.

Sue, I am in discussion with my Exchange administrator hopefully he can
provide some clues as well.