Upgrading an Organisational form causes data loss iin a calender

[Rick]

Hi,

I have written a custom form which creates an appointment for GAL users
froma central mailbox.

The central mailbox monitors the approval/declines for this form.

I have struck an issue where the majority of old calender meeting requests
have lost all of their original data.

Is there a chance that upgrading an Organisational form with the same
display name (but different Form name) will cause any previous appointments
to loose their information?

If so, Is there a way around it, and how? The form is used for SOX approval
tracking, so this is obviously a big deal (dammit)


Many, many thanks in advance.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

It's possible, if there was code or different formulas behind the new form. I've also seen cases where items lose data because the new form puts them over the 32kb limit for data. But if the only changes were layout changes and no new fields, changing the form should have to effect.

What symptoms indicate that the items are missing data? Did you look on the All FIelds page?

 

[Rick]

Hi Sue,

Thanks for the quick response, much appreciated.

There was some new code added for features such as pop-up calendar (using
mscal.ocx), and some new fields added. When published to the organizational
folder, some people had issues with it, so it was rolled back.

When I look at the appointments that lost data, there are now no fields at
all in the "all fields" page, and when I save the appointment to a network
location, it automatically defaults to an rtf extension (working forms
default to an oft).

Also, a "working" form has properties of 145kb, while a "lost" one drops
down to 21kb.

As a pre-caution, I have started saving all the incoming forms as an oft to
an external location to hopefully prevent any further data loss.

Is there any way of being able to recover any of this information?

Thanks in advance.

Rick.

 

[Rick]

Another question:

If I export the calender from the mailbox to a pst file, modify the
appropriate form in the organizational folder, and then open up an
appointment from the "backup" pst, will the data still be there?

I have started making a further backup by saving the appointment as an oft
to a network location (in the hope of preserving the data at least).

Many thanks

Rick.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Exporting data to a .pst file should preserve all data, IIRC, but test first. The export will not, of course, include any custom form definitions.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers