Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 2, No. 5 of Exchange Messaging Outlook (formerly Exchange Center Update), an occasional newsletter about Microsoft Exchange, Windows Messaging and Microsoft Outlook, both for users of Windows 95 and NT 4.0 and for organizations using Microsoft Exchange Server.
We took a little time off-line and hope that your summer (or winter for our friends south of the equator) vacation has also given you a chance to relax.
Today's highlights:
Regular features:
Microsoft Exchange Conference '97
Registration is now open for the Microsoft Exchange Deployment Conference, 28 Sep - 1 Oct, in San Diego. Preconference sessions will offer training on the upcoming release of Exchange (Osmium) and overviews of Active Server, Active Messaging, Visual Basic® Scripting Edition, and Visual InterDev™. Conference themes include Building Solutions; Deployment; Management, Troubleshooting, and Performance; Development; Technical Background; Coexistence and Migration; and The Future.
Save by registering on or before Aug. 25. Registration before that date costs $995; afterwards it's $1,295.
Detailed information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/events/mec97/.
Service Release 1 for Office 97 has been delayed until mid-August. That means a delay in releasing Outlook 8.02 for retail customers. If you got Outlook as part of the Exchange Server 5.0 package, then you can get Outlook 8.02 in a delta version that updates Outlook 8.01. See http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/ol802.htm.
All about Inbox Assistant and Rules Wizard custom actions
Perhaps you've wondered whether it would be possible to get the Exchange Inbox Assistant (IA) or Outlook Rules Wizard (RW) to automatically print particular incoming items or extract attachments automatically or launch a certain program or perform any number of tasks that are not included in the list of actions built into IA or RW.
The short answer is, yes, it is possible through what Microsoft calls "custom actions." You may have seen the "perform a custom action" checkbox at the bottom of the list of actions in RW. In Exchange (connecting to Exchange Server), when you choose Tools | Inbox Assistant | Add (or Edit) Rule, you see a Custom checkbox on the Add (or Edit) Rule dialog box for Custom. The dropdown list to it will be blank unless custom actions have been installed as Exchange extensions on your system.
Where do you get custom actions? That's the hard part. There are just two publicly available custom actions -- one to launch any program, the other to copy addresses to the Personal Address Book or an Outlook Contacts folder. (More on both those shortly).
Why so few? Custom actions must be written in C++. According to Ben Goetter, author of Developing Applications for Microsoft Exchange with C++ (see http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/exchbstr-dev.htm), "To create a custom rule, implement a library similar to that for Exchange client extensions, but instead offering objects that support IExchangeRuleExt, then install that library on every workstation that will support the custom rule. This interface appears in the BackOffice 2.0 SDK header file exchcli.h, which also contains documentation for the interface and its environment. Releases of the BackOffice 2.0 SDK since July 1996 contain the CRARUN sample, implementing this interface."
So, unless you know both C++ and the Exchange SDK, writing your own custom action isn't possible.
Let's look, therefore, at the two custom actions that you can obtain and use today.
One is called Launcher and was developed by Microsoft to demonstrate how to build custom actions. It is based on the CRARUN sample from the Exchange SDK. When the condition in a rule using Launcher is met, Launcher starts the program that you specify and passes it the ID of the message that triggered the rule.
Bundled with Launcher is a little program called ExPrint that prints a message based on the message ID passed to it by the Launcher custom action. ExPrint is written with Visual Basic using OLE/Messaging and stands as an example of how to write other VB routines that Launcher can trigger. You'll find Launcher and ExPrint at the Microsoft Exchange Applications Farm (ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/services/TechNet/samples/BOES/BO/MAILEXCH/exchange/appfarm/), with source code.
The second custom action is a shareware utility from Ludek Mokry, author of the ExLife add-on that does even more than IA or RW. CaBook (http://www.mokry.cz/exchange/cabook.htm) adds addresses from incoming or outgoing messages to your PAB or Contacts folder, depending on rules you set. Note, though, that it turns on RTF formatting for all added recipients. I would expect Ludek to come up with even more custom actions if this one is well received.
FYI, we've found a bug in the Outlook Rules Wizard that prevents you from using more than one custom action in a particular profile. I haven't had a chance to test whether the same problem affects Inbox Assistant.
Interesting new Outlook articles
I was prowling around the Microsoft web site this morning and came across several articles on using Outlook with Word, Access and Excel to perform particular tasks. You might want to check these out:
Exporting a Microsoft Access Table into an Outlook Contacts Folder
http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/sampauto.htm#ExportCreating Mailing Labels from an Outlook Contact List Using Word
http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/sampauto.htm#MailExporting Outlook Journal Entries to a Microsoft Access Table
http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/sampauto.htm#OutlookUsing Microsoft Excel To Do a Bulk Mailing in Microsoft Outlook
http://www.microsoft.com/exceldev/articles/bulkmail.htm
GoldExchange
Connects Microsoft Exchange or Outlook to a GoldMine contact database, allowing you to link messages to GoldMine contacts.
http://www.nemx.com/goldex/goldex.htmNotes/Exchange Connect
Transport provider for connecting Microsoft Exchange or Outlook to a Lotus Notes 4 server. Supports offline message reading.
http://www.zimm.demon.co.uk/dif/IntelliSync 97 for Windows
Synchronizes Microsoft Outlook 97 between two computers, copying only changes, not the entire file. Or, you can use it to synchronize between Outlook 97 and Lotus Organizer 97.
http://www.pumatech.com/intellisync_i97.htmlOlCat (alpha)
Manages Microsoft Outlook categories for a group of users. It can either merge or replace the current category set.
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6532/#GNotify+
New mail notification add-on for use with Microsoft Mail.
http://denali.pptnet.com/notify/notify.txtWireless Secretary
The Microsoft Outlook version sends alphanumeric pages with reminders and e-mail. The Microsoft Exchange version forwards e-mail, plus reminders from Schedule+. [No longer available as of 8/2002]
http://www.nmia.com/~jtech/Chilton Preview
The latest version of this popular Outlook preview pane fixes bugs and plugs memory leaks.
http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/gallery.htm#previewDesktop to Go for PalmPilot
This update improves Outlook synchronization speed.
http://www.dataviz.com/products/pim-pda/dtg/desktoptogohome.html
Get the answers from the Microsoft Exchange, Windows Messaging and Microsoft Outlook FAQs at http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/faqs.htm.
The Microsoft Outlook FAQ has a Table of Contents at http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/outlfaq.htm to help you find answers faster. New and updated items are at the bottom of the page.
Ask new questions and provide other feedback for the Slipstick Systems Exchange Center FAQs at http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/faqfdbk.htm.
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