Outlook programming

[Mercypoint]

I want to write an add-in or COM that will interface with Outlook's calendar. Mainly I want save appointments/tasks that was set in calendar and it will save to a MSSQL database. I found this site that talked a bit about outlook applications but nothing that would lead me to believe what I am trying to do is do-able. http://www.cimaware.com/main/newsletters/archive_legault1.php

Is this even possible?

 

[mikeblas]

Yes, it's possible.

You can find docs and tools in the Office Developers Kit. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/tool/research/default.aspx, for example.

 

[Mercypoint]

Thanks Mike: without your link I wouldn't even known there is such a thing. A few followup questions if you don't mind.

Research Services seems like web services for office (correct me if I'm wrong), is it similar? What I want to do is to not have the user interact with the database manually. Basically, when an appointment request comes in and is added to the outlook calendar automatically, it should also add that appointment to a database. Any adding/removing/editing of any appointments should be updated to the database. It will be best if I can create an area for the user to add meta-information regarding the appointment.

Is Reserach Services right for this? It seems like I need a way to tap into the outlook calendar control or the appointment control.

 

[mikeblas]

I don't know why you need to "tap in" to the controls, or what that would mean; you haven't mentioned anything about doing UI in your problem statements.

Without clearly understanding what it is you want to do, I can't give any specific recommendations.

 

[Mercypoint]

Okay, here is what I am trying to solve. People around here likes to add personal notes on what they did for the day (time-effort tracking) in the outlook calendar in addition to their appointments/meeting. What "uppers" wants are reports on how much time was spend on certain projects. And all these should be done without user action to upload to a database.

What I was thinking that everytime an user add an appointment for themselves or an appointment request comes in, outlook would save that into the database. It would be great if the user can indicate which project a note or an appointment is associated to (via UI dropdown built within calendar view or the appointment view?). The data in the database will all be automatically update anytime an appointment is changed.

How can I do this? thanks.

 

[mikeblas]

I see. I haven't done this level of integration with Outlook, but I would think that doing something with the Journal feature of Outlook would be more intuitive and appropriate than using the scheduler.

If you stick with the scheduler, I'd look into getting users to use labels for each of their appointments, then write something that goes against Exchange for each user's data at the end of the day to migrate the data to SQL Server.

I've not even looked into seeing if that's possible, but I don't see any reason to fiddle with the Outlook UI.