Should we link our DB to Outlook or Exchange?

[Robert1107]

We have an MS Access Service Management Software application that we
are linking to the Outlook Calendar. Part of our application is an
appointment scheduler which we think would work well in Outlook. We
are discussing the benefits of linking just to Outlook versus Exchange
and need some advice.

The scheduling in our MS Access DB is to schedule work orders for
various field workers. It would be best to be able to copy these
events directly into each users Calendar; however, it seems that the
only (best?) way is to link directly to the Exchange Server to do this.


We are trying to determine if we can link to a local client and then
create the appointment in the other peoples calendars if they share
their calendar with us as a delegate users? This approach would seem
to simplify the code and the support for the application.

We wanted to get other opinions from people on what they have done and
how it has worked for scheduling difference people on different days.

Regards,

Robert
http://www.miracleservice.com

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Important things to consider:

1) The primary prerequisite for an external application to be create items in Outlook/Exchange folders is write permission on the target folders.

2) Outlook is not suitable to automate as a server or other unattended application.

I would agree that the best solution for this scenario would be to interact directly with the Exchange server using WebDAV. That cuts out all the client dependency issues that would arise if you were using Outlook. Exchange development docs start at http://msdn.microsoft.com/exchange/ with discussions in the microsoft.public.exchange.development newsgroup.


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

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