Booking resources via custom form in Outlook 2003

[Neil Dittmar]

Hello All,

I have been having an issue using a custom
appointment form in Outlook 2003 for quite some time. The
server environment is Exchange 2003 Server running on
Windows 2003 Server. The problem occurs when booking a
resource for an appointment/meeting. If the custom
appointment form is published into the users calendar, but
not published into the resources calendar, I get the
following error when I attempt to book the resource using
the custom form:

"The object could not be found. Unable to directly book a
resource for this meeting."

If I publish the form into the resources calendar (so
that the form is published both in the client calendar and
the resources calendar), things seems to work ok for a
little while. However, there are two identifiable
problems. The first problem is that the administrator
would be required to publish the form into every resource
account. Publishing the form to hundreds of resources
would be extremely time consuming and a nightmare to
update when the forms are changed. The second problem is
that although this method seems to work for awhile,
eventually it gets to the point where Outlook locks up
while attempting to book a resource, especially if more
than 3 or so resources are booked at the same time.

It is important to mention that when the two forms
are synchronized (ie; client has the same version of the
custom form in his calendar as the resource does in its
calendar) and a resource is booked sucessfully, there is a
brief message that says something to the effect
of "Outlook is installing the form on your machine." with
a progress bar before the resource is actually booked.
I'm not sure why the form would need to be installed on
the machine since both client and resource have the exact
same version of the form already. Maybe this is part of
the problem.

Finally, I'm wondering if all of this has something
to do with the way the Outlook Forms cache operates. It
seems when I clear the cache, most of these problems go
away for a brief period of time. However, they creep up
again soon after.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Neil Dittmar
Software Developer
Aurora Information Systems

 

[Neil Dittmar]

Hello All,

I think I've finally come up with some type of
resolve to my immediate issues. Instead of publishing the
forms into the individual calendars (client and
resources), I'm publishing the custom appointment form
into an Organizational Forms library that I created and
setting the default form on the client calendar to point
to that form. This seems to eliminate all
the "synchronizing" necessary to get things working, as
well as the errors I was receiving previously. Thanks to
all the various individuals who contributed information
that allowed me to work through this problem.

Thanks again,

Neil Dittmar
Software Developer
Aurora Information Systems