viewing database info in custom contact form

[Mike Abrahamson]

I have a public contacts folder in OL2003 and EX2003/2000. I am designing a
custom form as the default for this folder that will include several custom
fields, one of which will be an "Entity ID" field. This field will contain
a unique number for many of the contacts in the public folder but not all.
Some of the contacts won't have any data in this field at all - but may have
a unique Entity ID assigned in the future.

I also am building an Access database that will contain all of these
contacts, along with sales and other info. I would like to link the Outlook
contacts with their database records somehow (using the Entity ID number),
either by creating a multipage tab control in the custom contact form to
show various items from the database or using SharePoint Services to
accomplish the same goal.

Is there a way to show external Access or Excel data in an Outlook form
linked in this way or will I have to figure out a way to use SharePoint
instead? Can anyone point out the pros/cons of such an approach if it is
possible to use the custom form to display this database info?

Thanks,
Mike Abrahamson

 

[Mike Abrahamson]

Sorry that I posted this in the wrong group. I won't cross-post but it
belongs in the microsoft.public.outlook.program_forms group.

Apologies!
Mike

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You would have to write code to connect to the database and display record
date in controls that you'd add to the form. See
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/database.htm . For Windows SharePoint Services
data, you'd use WebDAV, not ADO.

FYI, there is a separate newsgroup for Outlook forms issues --
microsoft.public.outlook.program_forms.