OL98: How to Automate Outlook from Another Program

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Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact a Microsoft Certified Partner or the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about Microsoft Certified Partners, please visit the following Microsoft Web site: For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Automation (formerly OLE Automation) allows one program to control another program by either issuing commands or retrieving information programmatically. You can use the code examples in this article in Microsoft Word 97, Microsoft Excel 97, Microsoft Visual Basic, or any other program that supports Automation.

Early vs. Late Binding

You can use either "early" or "late" binding to start an Automation session. Late binding uses either the GetObject or CreateObject function to initialize Outlook. For example, the following code sets an object to the Outlook program, which is the highest level object in the Outlook object model. All Automation code must first define an Outlook.Application object in order to access any of the other Outlook objects below that.

   Dim objOL as Object
   Set objOL = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
				

To use early binding, you first need to reference the available Outlook object library. To do this from Visual Basic (VB) or Visual Basic for Applications, follow these steps:

1. In the Visual Basic Editor, click References on the Tools menu.
2. Click to select the "Microsoft Outlook 8.5 Object Library" check box, and then click OK.

The object library file is Msoutl85.olb and installs to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office folder by default.

Once you reference the Outlook object library, you can use the following syntax to start an Outlook session:

   Set ol = New Outlook.Application
				

Using early binding has two important advantages. First, code using early binding runs faster than code using late binding (CreateObject/GetObject). Second, because you reference the Outlook object library, you can get online Outlook programming help using the object browser and Help system.

The Outlook Object Model

The Outlook object model provides functionality to manipulate data stored in Outlook folders. However, there is limited functionality available to control Outlook itself. For example, you cannot use the object model to change the Options settings on the Tools menu.

NOTE: As a possible workaround to limitations regarding the object model, you can use the CommandBars object provided by Microsoft Office to execute commands that are assigned to either toolbar buttons or menu commands. For example, you can use the CommandBars object to execute the New Call command (on the Dial submenu of the Tools menu) to bring up the New Call dialog box.

For more information about using CommandsBars with Microsoft Outlook 98, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Most programming solutions need to interact with the data stored in Outlook. Outlook stores all of its information in Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) folders. Therefore, after you set an object variable to Outlook.Application, you will commonly set a "Namespace" object to MAPI:

   Set ol = New Outlook.Application
   Set olns = ol.GetNamespace("MAPI")
				

Once you set the Namespace object, you are ready to set the next object to a folder within the MAPI Namespace. One common way of doing this is by specifying Outlook's "default" folders, which are the folders at the same folder level as the Inbox that receives incoming mail. The following code will set the objFolder object to the default Contacts folder:

   Set ol = New Outlook.Application
   Set olns = ol.GetNamespace("MAPI")
   Set objFolder = olns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)
				

For more information about referencing folders and items, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Once you are programmatically at the folder that contains the items you want to either use or create, you must use appropriate code to accomplish your programming task. See the section below for some common programming examples.

Sample Code for Common Programming Tasks

Create a New Default Task Item:

   Sub CreateNewDefaultOutlookTask()

      Dim ol As Object
      Dim NewTask As Object

      ' Set the Application object.
      Set ol = New Outlook.Application

      ' You can only use CreateItem for default items.
      ' Vbaoutl.hlp lists other Outlook constants to create other items.
      Set NewTask = ol.CreateItem(olTaskItem)

      ' Display the new task form so the user can fill it out.
      NewTask.Display

   End Sub

Create a New Contact Using a Custom Form:

   Sub CreateNewContactFromCustomForm()

      Dim ol As Object
      Dim olns As Object
      Dim objFolder As Object
      Dim AllContacts As Object
      Dim NewContact As Object

      ' Set the Application object.
      Set ol = New Outlook.Application

      ' Set the Namespace object.
      Set olns = ol.GetNamespace("MAPI")

      ' Set the default Contacts folder.
      Set objFolder = olns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)

      ' Set objAllContacts equal to the collection of all contacts.
      Set AllContacts = objFolder.Items

      ' Add a new contact to the AllContacts collection using the
      ' "IPM.Contact.MyForm" form.
      Set NewContact = AllContacts.Add("IPM.Contact.MyForm")

      ' Display the new contact form.
      NewContact.Display

   End Sub

Sample Subroutine to Loop Through All the Default Contacts:

   Sub GetOutlookContacts()

      Dim ol As Object
      Dim olns As Object
      Dim objFolder As Object
      Dim objAllContacts As Object
      Dim Contact As Object

      ' Set the Application object.
      Set ol = New Outlook.Application

      ' Set the Namespace object.
      Set olns = ol.GetNamespace("MAPI")

      ' Set the default Contacts folder.
      Set objFolder = olns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)

      ' Set objAllContacts equal to the collection of all contacts.
      Set objAllContacts = objFolder.Items

      ' Loop through each contact.
      For Each Contact In objAllContacts

         ' Display the Fullname field for the contact.
         MsgBox Contact.FullName

      Next

   End Sub
				

Resources for Outlook Automation

The following list includes some important resources for automating Outlook, located on the Microsoft Outlook Developer Forum:

• Microsoft Office 97 Developer Edition "Microsoft Office 97 Visual Basic Programmer's Guide," Chapter 5, "Microsoft Outlook Objects," 95-115, available on the Microsoft Web site:

  http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/default.asp?url=/archive/en-us/office97/html/web/005.asp