Looking for some ideas here...

I have a client with about 50 employees who use Outlook and Exchange Server 2000 and shared Public folders, but I didn't care about that until recently.

She has a main website that I have worked on before and an SQL Server backend that stores, among other things, User info. She also has a second SQL Server DB that is about 10 years old that she uses to track her customers (~1000) and marketing efforts...with an ASP front end accessible via the web...it is not connected to the User db for her main website I mentioned above, but it should be. She has asked that I update the customers database and the ASP website. I suggested to her that integrating the 2 databases into 1 would be the best solution, and also integrating and updating her crappy CRM into her main website would be a best alternative too.

After making this suggestion, and her agreeing, I got to thinking (DANGER! DANGER!) that she also has A LOT of the same User/Customer info in her Outlook.

"Am I reinventing the wheel?" I asked myself. If Outlook can do most of what we're looking for me to develop, why not use it? Can it do the rest of what we want it to do? Mainly:
- Can Outlook take the place of our SQL Server Users table altogether; which means we would need to Authenitacte User from the website against it. OR can my custom Outlook Forms view and update the SQL Server tables directly? Remember, we are sometimes remote and only have HTTP access.

I Googled and found a few resources on Outlook Forms, programming and such. I have NO experience with Outlook VBA (VBS?) and Outlook Forms, though it seems fairly straight forward, also I have NO experience administering Exchange and Public Folders.

I figured I would ask here to see if anyone had any experience with something like this, and any thoughts...

____________________________
Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.

Hi Bean

I got some code on how to access your outlook contacts in vb if its any use.

Private Sub Command1_Click()     Dim olapp As Outlook.Application     Dim olFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder     Dim olContact As Outlook.ContactItem     Dim olNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace          Set olapp = New Outlook.Application     Set olNameSpace = olapp.GetNamespace("MAPI")     Set olFolder = olNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)          For Each olContact In olFolder.Items              Debug.Print olContact.Email1Address          Next End Sub

Steve  

[Edited by steve_w on 27-02-2006 at 10:58 PM GMT]

Hi Bean.

Me, again. I was in a bit of a rush yesterday so I only posted the code. Personally I would prefer to have all my data in the sql server database. It makes it easier for reporting and searches. But an idea, using the code above as a start, you could maintain the contacts in outlook and synchronize it with the sql db.

Steve  

Thanks Steve.

I have half given up on this for now. I found several articles on MSDN on the topic, apparently MS looked into this for internal use not too long ago. They now sell a set of tools (Visual Studio Tools for Office) for working with Office in, wll , Visual Studio. There is not a lot out there on Outlook dev (relative to tother topics), so I'll be compiling info, sites and code to get me up to speed on it.

I am still trying to develop the idea for offline use and local storage, and then synch to the SQL Server probably through a web service. It's no small task considering my inexperience with Outlook, so the idea will sit on the shelf for now...

Please feel free to post any comments...

____________________________
Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.

This tool can help:
GeniusConnect will synchronize Outlook® data with any relational database that supports ODBC (MS Access, mySQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle etc....

http://www.geniusconnect.com