Creating calendar items programatically & remotely

[hals_left]

Hi, I am considering a project to provide our sales staff with
information from a central business system (Win2K3/ASP/SQL2K)and file
server,

The problem is thier tool of choice is Outlook as the functions are
contact/calendar based and they are remote/home based, accessing the
business system over a VPN.

If it goes ahead, I will probably procure a hosted exchange solution
for them but without knowing upfront if SQL integration is possible ,
it may be the wrong choice. These are the types of things I will need
to program in, anyone have any thoughts on this?

Is it possible create calendar items automatically in ASP code from an
application ? Can it be done with a hosted Exchange Server and remote
Outlook users (i.e over http not on a LAN)

Also can contact items in Exchange/Outlook be imported ,exported and
merged programatically from/to a remote SQL server or using a Web
service?

Can anyone direct me to any resources that discuss SQL/Outlook
integration advantages, limitations, example projects.

Thanks
hals_left

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Is it possible create calendar items automatically in ASP code from an

application ?

Yes, using the iCalendar specification. Users click on a link, then choose Save and Close to add the appointment to their calendars. You see this on many web sites.

Can it be done with a hosted Exchange Server and remote Outlook users (i.e over http not on a LAN)

Directly to the server? Only if the host allows WebDAV access.

Also can contact items in Exchange/Outlook be imported ,exported and
merged programatically from/to a remote SQL server or using a Web
service?

Yes, on the server side with WebDAV, on the client-side with a locally installed application.

You might find these web pages useful:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/exchange/
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/database.htm
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/sec.htm

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers