Need directions - which way to go?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
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G

Guest

Hello,

what I want to do is this:
Create an object (form? button? gizmo?) in a Public Folder. When a colleague
clicks/opens this object, he gets to fill in a couple of fields - among which
a To: field for the recipient - and then a 'standard' mail is generated with
this info and sent to 1) the recipient and 2) the Public Folder itself.
The recipient then replies to this mail and this reply is sent back to the
Public Folder.

Now, how should I do this? Where should I start off?
I have been looking at forms in Outlook but they don't do what I want (e.g.
I can only create an IPM.Post form in a PF, other form types just won't work).

Any suggestions/tips/advice/examples/info sources/.. ??

Many thanks! Goemmer.
 
There are two ways to do this. In both, the public folder will need to be mail-enabled by the Exchange administrator to make this all work, and I assume that the recipient is someone inside your organization.

Method 1:

Use two custom forms -- a message form with the controls you want and a launcher form. The latter would be a post form that you can use as the default form in the public folder to launch the message form. See http://www.outlookcode.com/d/forms/formlauncher.htm for a sample launcher form.

The message form will need to be published to the Organizational Forms library.

Method 2:

Use a single post form. Yes, you can put recipient controls, like a To box on a post form. The problem is that you then have to use CDO 1.21 or, to avoid security prompts, Redemption (http://www.dimastr.com/redemption/) to get the recipient information out of the post item so that you can put it into the message (which you can create simply with Application.CreateItem -- no custom form involved).

I'd use #1 myself, but note that it will work only if you can get permission from the Exchange administrator to publish the message form to the Organizational Forms library.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
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