I need some advice on automating Word/Outlook. Basically I am trying to make it easier for a computer illiterate person to fill in a form and send it to himself via outlook with the minimal amount of effort required.
Currently he is doing the following processes:
Filling in a Word template (often with lots of formatting issues)
Saving it as a new copy somewhere
Attaching the file to an email and emailing himself using outlook.
I would like to replace the above steps with some kind of Windows form that has automatic stuff like a date picker and dropdowns to reduce user input errors. Once its finished there would be a button that when pressed would send the contents of the form to himself via email.
Looking for advice on how best to go about this. I myself have a coding background so coding isn't a problem.
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I am using the office js method for a task pane read add-in in order to insert text into a reply
Office.context.mailbox.item.displayReplyForm()
However on the web client it opens up in a new tab which is not ideal as its a bit of a disruptive experience. In the docs it says:
In Outlook on the web, the reply form is displayed as a pop-out form in the 3-column view and a pop-up form in the 2-column or 1-column view.
Is there a way to stop it opening as a "pop-out" so to speak?
I have come across a setting for Dialogues called Office.DialogOptions.DisplayInIframe but it seems that is for dialogs which looks like a separate component, wondering if it can be used or if there is something similar for the reply form?
Would be great if anyone can shed some light on the above
No, the JavaScript Office API (OfficeJS) library doesn't provide anything for that.
I have come across a setting for Dialogues called Office.DialogOptions.DisplayInIframe but it seems that is for dialogs which looks like a separate component, wondering if it can be used or if there is something similar for the reply form?
You are on the right avenue - that is for dialogs.
You can post or vote for an existing feature request on Tech Community where they are considered when the Office dev team go through the planning process.
My partner and I created a custom task form to be used in Outlook using the developer mode to do that, and we published it to the Organization Forms Library for anyone to open. We're running into issues that I personally can't seem to find on how to resolve:
Custom forms aren't syncing correctly.
When I complete out the custom form, and I assign it to someone else they might be missing details like the dates I picked from the date picker, and text within the text box are gone too. It's very odd that sometimes some would get all the details that an end-user would input but that's like a 1/8 chance. I feel like there's a disconnect where it just won't behave like any other task. Cache mode or no cache mode doesn't matter it seems. When the person assigns it back with changes made on their end, those changes aren't seen on my side. I just have the same original details that I made when I first made it. We're on Exchange Server 2010.
Looks like a custom form was not published correctly to others in the organization. Try to create a new Outlook item on other machines with your custom forms to make sure they were deployed correctly.
Note, message forms default to separate layouts for composing and reading. Many people find their first message form doesn't look right when they receive an item created with it. That's simply because they forgot to click the Edit Read Page button and customize the Read layout!
You may find the Customizing Outlook Message Forms article helpful.
I'd like to use Tiddlywiki for a personal knowledge base. In my work flow a lot of content comes in as Outlook emails threads.
Is there a smart way to refer to this content without fully copying over the whole text to each and every tiddler manually?
Maybe saving Outlook mail thread as .msg file, placing it locally and referring to that file might work. The tiddler then may hold some basic summy, but whole detail content lies in the .msg file.
Any ideas?
I am in such case (more struggling with TiddlyWiki, which is great but lacks documentation currently). I ended up using the outlook:oid url-style that opens the mail in outlook. However, it's difficult to retrieve a mail oid, especially as this id changes when copying (and maybe moving) the mail to other folders/pst files.
In my case, I use some outlook mailbox parser that detect specific markup (categories, actions), and take appropriate actions (move them, create the outlook:oid link somewhere, etc). It's ugly but does the job.
You've essentially answered your own question. Alternatively, use gmail or the likes to get proper links that only you can follow.
I'm looking for some high-level help with determining the best type of Visual Studio 2010 project to use for an Excel custom application.
I will be developing a program that requires the user to enter a dataset in a particular way. Not using a form per se, but rather in columns and the program will need to do some custom validation on the items in order to prep the data. From there, the user will be able to conduct various operations on the data via a custom Ribbon and associated options. The program will also transmit the data via web service.
I've fooled around with the Add-In project and that gives me a lot of what I need but I'm wondering if a Template or Workbook project is better for this in terms of data entry and being able to "guide" the user a little more.
How do you go about choosing between which project type to use? Do all the project types support a custom Ribbon?
Sorry if this is too far off topic. I'm referring to VBA, not Visual Studio, but it might still be relevant.
With an AddIn, compared to a Workbook, you can separate your code from the user's data. So, if the code is complex, and you'll need to update it separately from user's workbooks with data, this is not a bad idea.
With an AddIn, you can add buttons that do things like check to make sure the user data workbook is ok, or process it in someway. However, the AddIn custom buttons will load ever time a user opens any Excel worksheet. This doesn't sound good, but in practice, isn't so bad. You can code your AddIn so it does nothing as long as no one uses a button, so it almost doesn't hurt load times, etc...
A Workbook might be useful if you need to really guide the user - that is, you cannot rely on the user to hit a button to verify something, and instead you need to verify on every change, for example. However, the workbook solution incorporates the user data and your code in the same workbook, so if you need to update the code for existing users' data, that's harder.
I use a combination of AddIn (.xlam) with buttons, and a template (with minimal self-describing data only).
I'm not sure about the template-only option, so won't comment on that.
I have a custom task pane I've made in VSTO for Outlook 2007, but it needs a fair amount of screen real estate to be functional. I'd like to just take over the place of the Reading Pane, as it won't really be needed when this addon is active. It's also a really great spot since this addon relies on drag-and-drop from mail folders to this task pane, and the closer I can get it to the folder pane, the better.
Any way to replace the Reading Pane, or at least toggle it's visibility?
I dont think there is a way in OOM to do this .. I you can change the size of you region though.
I have seen it done though with add-in-express tool http://www.add-in-express.com but that may be 2 much work for you to change to that model.
Take a look at the Replacement or Replace All Form Region options. Both of these options allow to replace the display of form region.
The Replacement form region let's you build a custom first page of your own.
The Replace All form region let's you build all form pages.
These are not simple options as you must provide all Outlook capabilities the user expects. This is why the Adjoining form region option is the popular choice.
You can read more here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dd492010(v=office.12).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/bb206784.aspx