Suggestions from an Outlook 2003 Application Developer

[Guest]

Good morning, I work for a not for profit agency as a Grants Compliance
Specialist. I have a very strong background and education in IT and
Instructional Design. I have been trying to develop a robust report tickler
system and job aid for my employer in Outlook and boy, do I have some
suggestions for you. You may have already implemented some of these in a
later version, but we have Outlook 2003.

Here goes:

Why don't you implement the scrolling windows feature in the monthly view in
Exchange on the regular Outlook calendar - it's a much more standard
interface and much nicer.

Come up with a more optimized way of storing data - If I put a graphic and
attach two files in a recurring appointment as part of my report tickler
system implemented in Outlook, and my calendar is stored on a remote server -
I don't want to be transmitting 1 and 2 Mb calendar entries to people. Can't
you use pointers to pointers or something so you don't have to store files
and images multiple times?

Why don't you have the Exchange version accept and display formatting in
html in your calendar entries as you do in your email - right now any
formatting I do in the regular Outlook degenerates to plain text in the
Exchange.

The Outlook Calendar editor should have at least as much functionality as
your Outlook email editor and it should handle tables from Word and Excel in
the same way as your email editor.

In future versions, you really need to add a feature to "clone" or "copy" a
calendar entry - especially since you don't provide for multiple levels of
recurrence - say a quarterly report that goes on indefinitely but that always
has "four" stages or milestones in it - which is another level of recurrence.

You should also be able to simply drag a calendar entry from a calendar in a
development environment to a calendar in a production environment. Right now
I have to email it to myself and drag it to the production calendar from the
email.

Well, that's all for now, but if I think of anything else I'll add it. Thanks!

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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...3faa2&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.calendaring

 

[Guest]

In recurring events - it would be nice to do the following:

If make any (and I mean any) changes to the master, at any time, I should
always have the option of specifying whether these should also appear in the
"occurrences," whether they are exceptions or not.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Why don't you implement the scrolling windows feature in the monthly view

in
Exchange on the regular Outlook calendar - it's a much more standard
interface and much nicer.

I'm not sure what you mean by this - you can scroll through the calendar in
Outlook, regarless of whether you use outlook against exchange or with other
accounts type. If you are using Outlook Web access, the features are limited
because you are viewing it in a web browser and have a number of
limitations that affect the ability to add such features (plus OWA issues
belong in a different forum). Switch to outlook and it will work as you
desire.

Come up with a more optimized way of storing data - If I put a graphic and
attach two files in a recurring appointment as part of my report tickler
system implemented in Outlook, and my calendar is stored on a remote
server -
I don't want to be transmitting 1 and 2 Mb calendar entries to people.
Can't
you use pointers to pointers or something so you don't have to store files
and images multiple times?

You can link items or attach them. If you send it to people on your exchange
server, exchange uses single instance storage, so it's only stored once for
all recieptents.

Why don't you have the Exchange version accept and display formatting in
html in your calendar entries as you do in your email - right now any
formatting I do in the regular Outlook degenerates to plain text in the
Exchange.

Again, are you talking about Outlook or OWA? OWA, because it uses the
browser, has some limitations not found in the Outlook client (which spports
RTF). Also, additional security features are enabled in OWA to prevent
viruses and other exploits from affecting your computer.

The Outlook Calendar editor should have at least as much functionality as
your Outlook email editor and it should handle tables from Word and Excel
in
the same way as your email editor.

I don't have a copy of Outlook 2003 to double check, but Outlook 2007 (beta)
does support some basic formatting formatting such as tables.

In future versions, you really need to add a feature to "clone" or "copy"
a
calendar entry - especially since you don't provide for multiple levels of
recurrence - say a quarterly report that goes on indefinitely but that
always
has "four" stages or milestones in it - which is another level of
recurrence.

Select it (press Esc if the subject line is editable) and press Ctrl+C then
paste doesn't work?

You should also be able to simply drag a calendar entry from a calendar in
a
development environment to a calendar in a production environment. Right
now
I have to email it to myself and drag it to the production calendar from
the
email.

Are they both on the same exchange server or domain? if so, add the dev
mailbox as a secondary mailbox and drag to your main mailbox.


--

Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
Outlook 2007: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure what you mean by this - you can scroll through the calendar in
Outlook, regarless of whether you use outlook against exchange or with other
accounts type. If you are using Outlook Web access, the features are limited
because you are viewing it in a web browser and have a number of
limitations that affect the ability to add such features (plus OWA issues
belong in a different forum). Switch to outlook and it will work as you
desire.

Hi, Diane, thanks for responding. I had to look up OWA because that acronymn
was new to me. I've been referring to it as "Outlook Exchange" - the
web-based view of the Calendar from our Exchange Server. In the point I was
trying to make above, I prefer the web-based implementation of the Monthly
View - because if you have too many appointments ( or in my case quarterly
report deadlines) to display in a day in that view, they appear in a standard
little window or list box with a scroll bar to the side. By contrast, regular
Outlook's Monthly View puts 3 little dots at the bottom to indicate there are
more appointments. When you click on those, you are taken out of Monthly View
into Daily View. I just think the list box is much nicer and more standard
and intuitive interface.

You can link items or attach them. If you send it to people on your exchange
server, exchange uses single instance storage, so it's only stored once for
all recieptents.

Yes, but are items stored only once for recurring entries? I haven't tested
out my theory that images and attachments are being stored multiple times for
recurring events, but I do know the size of a recurring calendar entry
attachment in an email is way larger than the sum of its parts.

Again, are you talking about Outlook or OWA? OWA, because it uses the
browser, has some limitations not found in the Outlook client (which spports
RTF). Also, additional security features are enabled in OWA to prevent
viruses and other exploits from affecting your computer.

Diane, thank you for the helpful info, I didn't know the regular Outlook
Calendar editor supported RTF. I knew that while it didn't act quite like
Word or Excel or even like Outlook Mail, it still seemed to accept a degree
of formatting from those programs. That's good to know. But my goodness, to
have all the formatting degenerate into straight text in the web-based view?
That's going backward. I mean, in OWA it's a WEB PAGE. Aren't we justified in
expecting it to handle images and color and formatting? It's a shame if
security concerns can't allow the web be the web in the most basic sense.
Also, it means that in my design I have to keep in mind how a calendar entry
is going to appear in both views - which means I have to come up with
something that will degrade gracefully in OWA.

I don't have a copy of Outlook 2003 to double check, but Outlook 2007 (beta)
does support some basic formatting formatting such as tables.

I look forward to upgrading.

Select it (press Esc if the subject line is editable) and press Ctrl+C then
paste doesn't work?

Geez ... talk about overlooking the obvious. Let me go try that ...

Yup, it works but it only copies that instance of the recurrance, not the
whole thing. Hmmm ... I wonder what would happen if I tried your suggestion
Outlook's Active Appointment (list) view ...

Omigosh! That worked! A little scary, but it worked! Now could they just
extend that feature to the right-click menu in all views? (An object is an
object - it should share similar properties)

Thanks, Diane.

Are they both on the same exchange server or domain? if so, add the dev
mailbox as a secondary mailbox and drag to your main mailbox.

I'll have to experiment with this suggestion - right now I've forced my dev
calendar to be on my local drive by copying it into my archive - and I back
it up by copying my pst file to the server. I do that because our network is
so painfully slow with these recurring calendar entries. II have tried
copying entries between some of my calendars, but I need to take a closer
look at that. Maybe your copy and paste suggestion above would work as well.

Thanks again.

JuneBug

--

Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
Outlook 2007: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/