A Custom Form for Reading and Replying to Emails

[ameasure]

Background: My workplace receives a large number of helpdesk emails.
To streamline the process I am trying to create a custom form that
behaves exactly like the default Outlook 2007 email reading and
replying forms except that when I open the emails the form parses the
message for key information, queries a database, and then displays the
result of that query in a text box to the right of the message body.

What I Did: I managed to create a IPM.Note custom form that uses
VBScript to parse the text and query the database, the part I can't
figure out is how to get it so my emails are opened with this form. I
assume this means setting it as the default form for my Inbox, however
it appears that I cannot do this with IPM.Note class forms.

Question: How do I need to alter my approach to accomplish my goal?

Alex

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

See www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=39 for information on how to do what
you want.

 

[ameasure]

Thank you for your quick response. I read the link you provided
several times, it sounds like what I am trying to do should not be
done with custom forms. For example the page says that "using a
published custom form as a substitute for the default message form is
a very bad idea", and in a response to another user Sue Mosher stated
"no, a mail/post folder cannot have a message form (IPM.Note.*) as its
default form."

I did not however see any information about the correct way to
implement a customized email interface like the one I described
previously (it should look and behave just like a normal email read/
post form, except there is an additional text box that displays
information to the helpdesk worker while they read and respond to the
emails). Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

Alex

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

You can do what you want, it's just not a very good idea, as Sue says. That
won't stop you if you're determined however. Using the registry setting
mentioned does let you make a custom form your default mail form. That it's
not a real good idea is something else.




Thank you for your quick response. I read the link you provided
several times, it sounds like what I am trying to do should not be
done with custom forms. For example the page says that "using a
published custom form as a substitute for the default message form is
a very bad idea", and in a response to another user Sue Mosher stated
"no, a mail/post folder cannot have a message form (IPM.Note.*) as its
default form."

I did not however see any information about the correct way to
implement a customized email interface like the one I described
previously (it should look and behave just like a normal email read/
post form, except there is an additional text box that displays
information to the helpdesk worker while they read and respond to the
emails). Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

Alex