Outlook/Bespoke CRM Integration

[Mighty]

Hi Folks,

This is my first time here so forgive me if I am not following protocol. I
am about to start on an Office add-in development for the first time and
don't really know where to start.

Basically what I need to be able to do is integrate MS Outlook with a
bespoke CRM system. So when a user is sending an email I need to have a
button or some means whereby the user can elect to send the email and store
it in the CRM. Similarly, when a user receives an email I need to be able to
give them an option to save that email into the CRM.

I haven't a clue where to even start yet as I have no experience in this
area. One of the main problems that I see if providing the user with a list
of the companies in the CRM so that they can select which company the email
relates to. We would have several remote workers and users accessing their
emails via Outlook Web Access.

What I was hoping to get from here was some pointers about how I should go
about this. The CRM system uses a simple MS Access database. As regards
software I am using Office Professional 2003 and I have Visual Studio 2005
with Visual Studio Tools for Office to aid me with the development.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Look at the various code samples at www.outlookcode.com, many there are
relevant to what you're asking about. You will need a COM addin for that.

For OWA it's an entirely different problem. OWA has no connection to
Outlook, it's Web based and connects directly to the server. OWA does not
run Outlook COM addins, to customize OWA you will need to write your own
customizations using JavaScript and compile a new OWA and install it on the
server. That would have to be done for each service pack and version of
Exchange and possibly for various hot fixes too.

You can use any connection method you want to Access (Access object model
via automation) or one of the many ADO variants or even DAO to retrieve the
Access data. How you then display it in Outlook is then up to you. I've used
grid controls and dropdowns and various other methods.

For OWA there's also the matter that your code is server based so you have
to ensure that any connections and queries with Access are handled properly.

 

[Mighty]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the reply - alot of it went over my head. Although I had a quick
look at the outlookcode.com website and that looks like I should be able to
get some good sample code there.

I think that I might just ignore OWA for the first phase and try to get it
working with Outlook first.

As regards getting the list of customers displayed, will a simple ADO query
to the Access database work. I wasn't sure how that would work if the user
was accessing email via Outlook over a VPN connection.

I'm sure I will be back here with more questions once I start development.

Thanks again Ken.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

An ADO query to the Access database is the method I use most often. As long
as the connection over the VPN has access to Access it will work. If it
doesn't then the whole thing goes down the drain.