Linking to Outlook Calendar

Thanks Peter I'll take a look.

This is pretty easy with .Net. You'll need to download and install the Microsoft Exchange Web Services Managed API 2.1. Then add a reference to your assemblies file.

Here's some sample code I was playing with.

USING System.*.

USING Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.*.

USING System.Net.Security.*.

USING System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.*.

DEFINE VARIABLE service   AS ExchangeService.  

DEFINE VARIABLE oBody     AS Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MessageBody.

DEFINE VARIABLE appt      AS Appointment.

DEFINE VARIABLE ApptStart AS DATETIME.

DEFINE VARIABLE ApptEnd   AS DATETIME.

apptStart = NOW.

apptEnd = NOW + 3600000.

service = NEW ExchangeService(ExchangeVersion:Exchange2010) .

service:credentials = NEW WebCredentials("<some exchange account>", "<some exchange password>").

service:AutodiscoverUrl("<some exchange account>").

oBody = NEW Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MessageBody().

appt = NEW Appointment(service).

oBody:BodyType = BodyType:HTML.

oBody:Text = "My test <B>New Test appt</B>".

appt:Body = oBody.

appt:Start = ApptStart.

appt:End = ApptEnd.

appt:Save().

MESSAGE "done"

   VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX.

I should probably have said creating a basic appointment is easy. Not sure about the rest but the API looks pretty complete.

This does not require Outlook .

This will work if the user's mailbox is on an Exchange server, if that is not the case the only option will be the good old Outlook MAPI (COM interface) - msdn.microsoft.com/.../jj900714%28v=office.15%29.aspx

If Exchange is used direct web-service access (EWS) can also be used, if managed .NET version mentioned by Tom doesn't work for you. We have that working for calendar, tasks and contacts. If Office365 is used the managed EWS will need some tweaks to make it accept the ssl certificate and be aware of proxy settings in IE as those are going to be used by EWS as well (by default).

Hi James,

I've had a look at doing something similar in the past, and found the libraries available at www.independentsoft.com/.../index.html to be very comprehensive and easy to use. Not expensive and free run-time.

Note there are 2 versions available, the later versions of Outlook expose functionality via web services, and the libraries provided by this company provide easy to use helper classes exposing that functionality. 

They also do allow you to create entries in other users calendars, an C# example from their site is shown below, looks pretty easy to convert to OE.

using System;
using System.Net;
using Independentsoft.Exchange;

namespace Sample
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            NetworkCredential credential = new NetworkCredential("username", "password");
            Service service = new Service("https://myserver/ews/Exchange.asmx", credential);

            try
            {
                Mailbox johnMailbox = new Mailbox("John@mydomain.com");
                StandardFolderId johnCalendarFolder = new StandardFolderId(StandardFolder.Calendar, johnMailbox);
                
                Appointment appointment = new Appointment();
                appointment.Subject = "Test";
                appointment.Body = new Body("Body text");
                appointment.StartTime = DateTime.Today.AddHours(15);
                appointment.EndTime = DateTime.Today.AddHours(16);
                appointment.Location = "My Office";
                appointment.ReminderIsSet = true;
                appointment.ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = 30;

                ItemId itemId = service.CreateItem(appointment, johnCalendarFolder);
            }
            catch (ServiceRequestException ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error: " + ex.Message);
                Console.WriteLine("Error: " + ex.XmlMessage);
                Console.Read();
            }
            catch (WebException ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error: " + ex.Message);
                Console.Read();
            }
        }
    }
}
              

HTH.

Thanks for the input folks. Something to look at for a rainy day! :D

Hi

I started to play with the Microsoft Exchange Web Services Managed API 2.1. and creating an appointment is fine. I am now interested how I would read the calendar for a particular person and was wondering if anybody has some code samples to share.

thanks in advance

Thomas

Looks like this thread has lain dormant for a while. Does anyone have success to report?

I have client looking to have me populate Outlook tasks from Linux based CHUI Progress (10.2b). Do we think that would be feasible? Are there extra hurdles coming from Linux?