Off-Line access to email via VBA

[Guest]

I have a laptop PC that connects to a microsoft exchange server via a VPN.
When connected I can attach files from the laptop pc to an email using VBA in
Excel. All works OK.
If I operate the PC without VPN conection my file attachment program fails
with unable to access datastore error.

Is this an outlook error as it cannot create an email item ?

Cheers
Nigel RS

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

When you're not connected, can you open Outlook manually? If not, then maybe you need to change your Outlook configuration so you can work offline.

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

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

 

[Guest]

Hi Sue
Since I created the thread I discovered that I cannot open outlook manually
when off-line, but other PC uses of the network can. I will try it on one
that can open outlook and get my pc reconfigured if that works

Thanks
Nigel RS

 

[Guest]

Hi Sue
That fixed it. I also added a error handler that detects if the attempt to
create an email fails which works great.

Another question: when I attempt to create the email in an off-line
situation the dialog Exchange Server is offline with the option Retry,
Offline or Cancel opens. I presume this is an outlook dialog? If it is can
and how do I interact with this - e.g. user presses Cancel or create Offline
etc from within Excel?.

Cheers
Nigel RS

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

If the user clicks Cancel, you should get an error, which you'll need to handle, when you try to create an email message. If the user chooses Offline, your code will be able to create and send email messages, but they won't be transmitted to the server until the user synchronizes with the server from the offline session or restarts Outlook in an online session.

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

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

 

[Guest]

Thanks Sue, I have through my current error-handler detecting this
situation. My real question should have been how can I detect if the user is
on-line or off-line before I attempt to create an email?

I had an idea to try to create an email in background (unknown to user),
detect the error( if any) and use this to control the user dialog in my
application. But the Outlook dialog appears, in off-line mode, and this
causes a user interaction that I want to avoid.

Thanks

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You can't really know until Outlook starts. The user could even have Outlook set up to *always* prompt whether to work in online or offline mode, regardless of the VPN status.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

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

 

[Guest]

Thanks - what a pity! I always try to avoid un-neccessary user interaction
but it seems I am stuck with this one.

Cheers
Nigel