G
GiladP1
I need advice on the issue of synchronization of the Outlook Calendar
with an Access database. I have experience programming DAO with Access
objects but not with the Outlook objects.
Here is my situation:
I have an access application with a scheduling feature (amongst many
other features). I want to offer the users a nice calendar interface to
see the events that they insert in the application. I think it would be
best to send this information to Outlook and offer my users to see
their data there, rather than re-inventing the wheel and trying to
build a calendar interface of my own in Access.
The problem is that the data in the Access application gets updated, so
the users will need a way to synchronize the application once in a
while.
My plan is to have a command button in the Access application that will
do two things:
1) It will delete any previous Outlook records that the application has
sent to Outlook in the past.
2) It will send all the records again from Access to Outlook.
The reason for this scheme is that I need to verify that deleted
records are updated too. If some records get deleted in the Access
application, and then I just send in the new records from this
application to Outlook, how will the program know it needs to delete
some of the previous records that still exist in Outlook from the
previous synchronization?
I don't mind that the users will only be able to update their records
in the Access application, so that the Outlook calendar will only be
used to read records. This way I can just delete everything in Outlook
that originated from my application, and start from scratch for each
synchronization.
With regard to the option of a back and forth synchronization, I think
I read that there is an Outlook field in the appointment object for
storing the last update-date, and I can add such a date to my records
in the Access application, so there is a possibility to use this field
in order to check which records need updating. But this will not solve
the problem of deleted items. Also, there are several fields in each
record, so what if one field gets updated in the Access application and
another in the Outlook calendar, for the same record? The last update
field pertains to the whole record and not just to a particular field
inside of it, so again there will be a problem of finding the right
direction to choose for the synchronization.
So my questions are:
Is this reasonable or silly?
Will it take too much time?
Is there a better way for synchronizing?
Are there security issues that will prevent me from being able to do
this?
What would be the best way to filter only the records in Outlook that
originated from my Access application, so as not to delete other
calendar records that the user may have added? I thought of maybe using
a unique id field and store it in a category for each appointment, and
then to delete all appointments of that category.
Thanks for any thoughts
Thanks greatly in advance
with an Access database. I have experience programming DAO with Access
objects but not with the Outlook objects.
Here is my situation:
I have an access application with a scheduling feature (amongst many
other features). I want to offer the users a nice calendar interface to
see the events that they insert in the application. I think it would be
best to send this information to Outlook and offer my users to see
their data there, rather than re-inventing the wheel and trying to
build a calendar interface of my own in Access.
The problem is that the data in the Access application gets updated, so
the users will need a way to synchronize the application once in a
while.
My plan is to have a command button in the Access application that will
do two things:
1) It will delete any previous Outlook records that the application has
sent to Outlook in the past.
2) It will send all the records again from Access to Outlook.
The reason for this scheme is that I need to verify that deleted
records are updated too. If some records get deleted in the Access
application, and then I just send in the new records from this
application to Outlook, how will the program know it needs to delete
some of the previous records that still exist in Outlook from the
previous synchronization?
I don't mind that the users will only be able to update their records
in the Access application, so that the Outlook calendar will only be
used to read records. This way I can just delete everything in Outlook
that originated from my application, and start from scratch for each
synchronization.
With regard to the option of a back and forth synchronization, I think
I read that there is an Outlook field in the appointment object for
storing the last update-date, and I can add such a date to my records
in the Access application, so there is a possibility to use this field
in order to check which records need updating. But this will not solve
the problem of deleted items. Also, there are several fields in each
record, so what if one field gets updated in the Access application and
another in the Outlook calendar, for the same record? The last update
field pertains to the whole record and not just to a particular field
inside of it, so again there will be a problem of finding the right
direction to choose for the synchronization.
So my questions are:
Is this reasonable or silly?
Will it take too much time?
Is there a better way for synchronizing?
Are there security issues that will prevent me from being able to do
this?
What would be the best way to filter only the records in Outlook that
originated from my Access application, so as not to delete other
calendar records that the user may have added? I thought of maybe using
a unique id field and store it in a category for each appointment, and
then to delete all appointments of that category.
Thanks for any thoughts
Thanks greatly in advance