The information in this article applies to:
SUMMARY
This article provides resources and answers some of the more commonly asked
questions about creating custom solutions using Outlook forms and
other Outlook programming technologies, such as Visual Basic for
Applications and Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript). Resources MORE INFORMATIONResourcesMicrosoft Outlook Visual Basic Reference HelpPrimary documentation for creating Outlook solutions is provided in the Microsoft Outlook Visual Basic Reference (Vbaoutl9.chm), which is installed by Microsoft Office or Outlook Setup. This file contains information about forms, fields, controls, the Outlook object model, and a general overview of VBScript, Visual Basic for Applications, and COM add-ins. It also summarizes all of the new developer-related features in Outlook. If you customize Outlook frequently, consider placing a shortcut to Vbaoutl9.chm on your desktop or Windows Start menu.Microsoft Office Developer Web ForumThis Microsoft Web site provides a wide variety of information about building solutions based on Microsoft Office. The site is updated frequently and is located at:http://msdn.microsoft.com/OfficeDev Microsoft Exchange Server CollaborationThis Microsoft Web site provides a wide variety of information about building solutions on Exchange. The site is updated frequently and is located at:http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/Collaboration.htm Microsoft Knowledge BaseConsult the Microsoft Knowledge Base for up-to-date information about issues related to creating Outlook solutions. Many how-to articles are also included. To make finding articles easier, most articles related to custom Outlook solutions contain the query term OutSol2000. The Web site is located at:http://http://support.microsoft.com/support/search/c.asp? Third-Party Web SitesThe following third-party Web sites provide information about creating Outlook solutions:Outlook and Exchange Developer Resource Center Slipstick Systems Exchange Center VBScriptOutlook 2000 includes VBScript version 5.0 as the scripting language for forms-based solutions. The Microsoft Scripting Web site provides frequently asked questions, sample code, language documentation, and free downloads for people using the VBScript language. The Scripting Web site is available at:http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/ MSDN OnlineIf you are developing enterprise-level solutions that involve Microsoft Exchange Server or Microsoft Office, you should consult various Exchange Server and Messaging documentation that is available at the Microsoft Developer Network Library site:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.htm Primary Microsoft Office documentation is provided in the top-level Microsoft Office Developer folder. Primary Exchange Server information is provided in the Platform SDK folder, under Messaging and Collaboration Services. Be sure to browse other top-level folders, such as Technical Articles and Backgrounders. Internet NewsgroupsPeer-to-peer newsgroups are available to help you interact with other Outlook users. You can use any newsreader software to access these newsgroups. The Microsoft news server name is msnews.microsoft.com. The newsgroups related to Outlook solutions include program_forms, program_vba, and program_addins. Information about all Microsoft newsgroups is available at:http://support.microsoft.com/support/news BooksBuilding Applications with Microsoft Outlook 2000by Randy Ryrne, Microsoft Press (ISBN 1-7356-0581-5) Available from Microsoft Press Online Building Applications with Microsoft Outlook 98 by Microsoft Press (ISBN 57231-718-3) This book is still available at major book sellers and from Microsoft Press Online. Programming Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange by Thomas Rizzo, Microsoft Press (ISBN 0-7356-0509-2) Available from Microsoft Press Online Teach Yourself Outlook 2000 Programming in 24 Hours by Sue Mosher, Sams Press (ISBN 0-672-31651-X) Developing Applications using Outlook 2000, CDO, Exchange, and Visual Basic by Raffaele Piemonte and Scott Jamison, Addison-Wesley Pub Co. (ISBN: 0-201-61575-4) Programming Microsoft Outlook 2000 by Gordon Padwick and Ken Slovak, Sams Press (ISBN: 0-672-31549-1) Outlook 2000 VBA Programmers Reference by Dwayne Gifford, Worx Press (ISBN: 1-861-00253-X) Programming MS Exchange Server by Nik Okunstseff and Nik Okuntseff, Miller Freeman Books (ISBN: 0-879-30567-3) ADSI CDO Programming with ASP by Mikael Freidlitz and Todd Mondor, Wrox Press (ISBN: 1-861-00190-8) NOTE: For general information on offerings by Microsoft Press, call Microsoft Press at (800)MSPRESS, or consult the Microsoft Press Web site at: http://mspress.microsoft.com MagazinesExchange & Outlookby The Development Exchange (Fawcette Technical Publications) http://exchange.devx.com/Microsoft Outlook & Exchange by Advisor Media, Inc. http://www.advisor.com/wHome.nsf/w/JMOXmain Microsoft Product Support ServicesMicrosoft provides a complete range of support options for Outlook customers. For more information about where to get direct support for developing solutions with Outlook, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q198354 OL2000: Getting Support for Developing Outlook-related SolutionsFor more information about the type of support Microsoft Product Support Services can provide, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q234322 OFF2000: Getting Support for Microsoft Office Solutions Solution ProvidersFor information about Solution Providers in your local area, contact the Microsoft Solution Provider Sales and Information line at (800)765-7768 in the US or (800)563-9048 in Canada. For information about support in other locations, contact a local Microsoft subsidiary.Items and Outlook Custom FormsQ: I have created a custom form for my Contacts, Tasks, and so on, but it is not being used when I create a new item, when I open an existing item I had before I created the form, or when I create a new item. Why is my form not being used?A: To use a custom Outlook form, there are three steps you need to complete.First, publish the form in the folder or forms library where you will use it. On the custom form File menu, click Publish Form. The name of the form is also the Message Class, which is important for the next two steps. Second, make this new form the default form for that folder. Using your right mouse button, click the folder and on the shortcut menu, click Properties. In the When posting to this folder, list, click to select your custom form. Now new items that you create will use the custom form instead of the default Outlook form. Third, if you have any existing items in the folder that should use this new form, you must change the Message Class field in each of the items in the folder. The Message Class field of an item tells Outlook which form to use to display the item. You cannot directly change this field from Outlook since it is considered read-only, but it is possible use programming code and the Outlook object model to change the field. For more information about changing the message class of an item in a folder and utilities to help you do this, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q201087 OL2000: How to Update Existing Items to Use a New Custom Form Q201089 OL2000: Word Document to Change Message Class of Outlook Items Q: How can I disable the macro warning when someone opens an item?A: If the form is not located in a trusted location, such as the Organizational Forms Library on the Exchange Server, then Outlook will display the macro warning for your protection against potentially malicious programming code, commonly called macro viruses. There is no direct way to prevent the warning from appearing, you must publish the form to a trusted location. For more information about this issue, and other reasons why you may receive this warning, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q207913 OL2000: Why Outlook Displays a Security Warning Opening an Item Q: I created a custom form and it looks great, but when I close and then open the item again, or when I send the form to someone else, all of the information I entered into my custom controls is gone. Why does this happen?A: In Outlook, controls on a form are used to display information, but the information is actually stored in fields. Therefore, in order for the values of the controls to be preserved, the control must be bound to an Outlook standard or user-defined field. For more information about this issue, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q207430 OL2000: How to Use Fields and Controls with VBScript Q: User-defined fields aren't working the way I expect. How come?A: User-defined fields offer great flexibility in how data is structured within a folder, but this flexibility can also provide some challenges for solution developers. For more information about using user-defined fields in Outlook, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q201438 OL2000: Working With User-defined Fields in Solutions Q: Why do some items in a folder have different icons? Why do some of the items in the folder have an abnormally large size? Why does the Message Class of an item change back to the default Message Class? How can I get a better understanding of how forms work in Outlook?A: Understanding the difference between forms and items and how the two relate to each other is important when designing an Outlook solution. In most scenarios, forms are published to a location and then linked to the items in the folder. However, it is possible that forms can be stored within individual items, and this can cause Outlook behavior to change in various circumstances. For more information about form definitions and how they relate to items, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q207896 OL2000: Working with Form Definitions and One-Off Forms Q: When importing contacts from an external database, how do I map some of the fields to the user-defined fields that I have set up in a custom contact form?A: This is a limitation of the Outlook Import and Export Wizard. There is no way to directly import data into user-defined fields. If you are familiar with Visual Basic programming, you can create a solution that programmatically imports or exports the information. For more information about this issue and an example of importing data from Microsoft Access into Outlook user-defined fields, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q197654 OL2000: Cannot Import or Export User-defined Fields Q208232 OL2000: Programmatically Import Outlook Items From MS Access Q: When I use a control on a custom Outlook form, how come none of the control events appear to work?A: When using a custom Outlook form, Outlook only supports the Click event for controls. Many controls are specifically designed to work with other events, and since these events are not supported by Outlook, the controls may not function in Outlook.To work around this situation, you can create a Visual Basic ActiveX component (formally called an OLE server application). You start the component by using the CreateObject method in VBScript. The component displays a Visul Basic form with the appropriate controls, gets the information that the user selects or types, and then automates Outlook to send any necessary information back to the Outlook form. This technique involves many aspects of programming. For information on how to create an ActiveX component, please see the documentation for Microsoft Visual Basic. For more information about control events on Outlook custom forms, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q231169 OL2000: Click Event Behavior for Standard Controls Q: Can I print forms WYSIWYG?A: There is no direct way to print forms WYSIWYG. Also, the Outlook object model does not provide more printing functionality than what is provided by Outlook itself. However, there is an ActiveX control and Outlook extension available that may suit your needs. For more information about this issue and a basic example of how to create a printout using Microsoft Word, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q230512 OL2000: Outlook Does Not Print Forms as Expected Q: How do I generate reports based on data stored in Outlook?A: There are a few approaches you can take:
http://www.seagatesoftware.com/products/crystalreports/default.asp Q: How can I start another program or display a Web page from an Outlook form?A: You can use the CreateObject method in VBScript to automate an OLE-aware application.For more information about this issue, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q206719 OL2000: How to Start Another Program from an Outlook Form Q231927 OL2000: How to Display a Web Page in an Outlook Form VBA, COM Add-ins and AutomationQ: I don't understand. VBScript? Visual Basic for Applications? Which is it?A: Outlook custom forms still use VBScript as they did in previous versions. However, Outlook now provides support for Visual Basic for Applications at the application-level, meaning that you can run macros from the main Outlook toolbars or menus and that code can function outside the scope of an item. Most of the additions to the Outlook object were added to support this new application-level programming model. For example, there are many new events that allow custom code to run when certain things happen in Outlook, such as when you recieve new mail, or if the user selects a different item in a folder. Your code can run much like a batch process, where you click a toolbar button and a macro retrieves data from a folder and then updates information in a public folder.Q: COM add-ins also give me the ability to create application-level code. So when should I use a COM add-in, and when should I use Visual Basic for Applications?A: Visual Basic for Applications in Outlook was designed primarily to create personal solutions. It allows you to quickly create a solution to fit your needs. COM add-ins are typically the better choice if you wish to distribute your solution. However, COM add-ins generally require a greater investment in development time.Q: How can I record macros?A: While Outlook now includes Visual Basic for Applications, the Outlook object model does not provide functionality that supports recording macros.Q: How do I get started automating Outlook from another program?A: For information on automating Outlook from another program, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q201096 OL2000: How to Automate Outlook from Another Program Q: Where is my Visual Basic for Applications project stored? How to I distribute a solution I created to other people?A: For information on using Visual Basic for Applications projects in Outlook, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q229911 OL2000: Managing and Distributing Outlook Visual Basic for Applications Projects Q: My COM add-in causes Outlook to hang. What could be going wrong?A: Your COM add-in may be causing a Visual Basic run-time error to occur, and this may be causing a problem with Outlook. Due to a limitation in COM add-ins, you should use error trapping throughout your COM add-in code to trap any potential run-time errors. For information on this issue, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q208316 OL2000: All Potential COM Add-in Run-Time Errors Should be Trapped The Outlook Object ModelQ: I am trying to do something but it doesn't seem possible. Is it?A: Outlook does not support a full object model, such as those in Word or Excel, so what you are trying to do may not be possible. Also, there may be other Outlook design considerations or limitations that may prevent you from using a desired approach in creating a solution.For more information about some of the more common things that cannot be done within Outlook solutions, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q208527 OL2000: Common Outlook Object Model Limitations Q: How do I programmatically refer to a particular Outlook folder or a particular item? How do I create a new folder or item?A: Outlook provides a variety of ways to programmatically access and maniuplate items and folders. For more information about working with folders and items, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q208520 OL2000: Programming Examples for Referencing Items and Folders Q: How do I programmatically search for items and folder based on the contents of a field?A: You can use the Find method to retrieve a single item based on the contents of one or more fields. Or, you can use the Restict method to retrieve a set of items that match certain criteria. For more information about using the Find and Restrict methods, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q201081 OL2000: Using Find and Restrict to Retrieve Items Q: I'm having problems working with a collection of objects, what might be the cause?A: The following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles summarize the most common problems developers have when working with collections. In addition, a collection may not be updated until an item is saved, so if you find that a collection is not in the proper state, try saving the item to force Outlook to update the collection. For more information about working with collections, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q222481 OL2000: How to Properly Reference Members of a Collection Q222482 OL2000: How To Handle Unexpected Items in a Collection Q222480 OL2000: How to Delete Items in a Collection Q: I created a solution in Outlook 97 or Outlook 98 that uses the ShowFormPage and HideFormPages methods in the Outlook object model, but it doesn't behave the same in Outlook 2000. Why?A: In Outlook 97 and Outlook 98, using the ShowFormPage and HideFormPage methods caused the item to become a one-off item. This behavior was changed in Outlook 2000 and using these methods no longer result in the form definition being stored within the item. Unfortunately, this improvement may have an impact on some older solutions where VBScript code depends on the form pages being saved in a certain state. For more information about this change, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q218618 OL2000: ShowFormPage, HideFormPage No Longer Create One-Off Item Q: How can I integrate address books with my solution?A: For a top-level overview of working with address books in a custom solution, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q231290 OL2000: Using Address Books in an Outlook Solution Additional query words: FAQ OutSol OutSol2000 vbscript
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