Outlook 2003 custom form fields not accessible to Exchange Server

[Ade_kcc]

Hi,

I have created a very simple custom form which is published to the
Organisational Library so users can send simple SMS messages through
our EMail system.

I don't seem to have any ability to change the properties of the
standard Outlook Message field so I created a very simple text object
with a maximum length and simple validation.

However my Exchange 'expert' tells me that he cannot process any
content in an Outlook form unless it is in the Message field! :-(

Is this the case? Does Exchange have no means of opening a published
custom form and extracting the data in a user-defined field?

If not, can I modify the properties of the Message field to at least
set a max length? I also then have the problem that if I set a
default signature block my sig is built-in to the published form and
appended to all messages sent using that form by other users!!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

It's not clear what your expert is trying to tell you. Exchange is a server application. It doesn't "open" anything. Any SMS receiver, though, would be able to read only the message body, not any custom fields. Maybe that's what the expert is getting at.

You should always turn off automatic signatures before doing any custom form design work.

It is not possible to set the maximum size of the message body. You could, however, put code behind the form in the Item_Send event handler to check the length of the Body property and either cancel the send or truncate the text.

You will also want to check with the Exchange administrator to make sure that the server is blocking TNEF/RTF content. Otherwise, you'll be sending a Winmail.dat attachment with each message you create with this custom form, which may not work well with SMS recipients.

 

[Ade_kcc]

It's not clear what your expert is trying to tell you. Exchange is a server application. It doesn't "open" anything. Any SMS receiver, though, would be able to read only the message body, not any custom fields. Maybe that's what the expert is getting at.

You should always turn off automatic signatures before doing any custom form design work.

It is not possible to set the maximum size of the message body. You could, however, put code behind the form in the Item_Send event handler to check the length of the Body property and either cancel the send or truncate the text.

You will also want to check with the Exchange administrator to make sure that the server is blocking TNEF/RTF content. Otherwise, you'll be sending a Winmail.dat attachment with each message you create with this custom form, which may not work well with SMS recipients.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54










- Show quoted text -

Many thanks for that Sue.

I had assumed that message content, forms or otherwise, passing
through the Exchange server would be accessible to some application or
other.

It took a while, but we've learnt about the automatic signature
issue! Is this fixed in Outllok 2007? It seems odd to me that an
organisational development function is subject to the same rules as
the user function.

I will look at the Item_Send handler as you suggest if that may offer
some useful pre-send validation.

Thanks again

Adrian

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

There's nothing to "fix" regarding the signature. If you don't want the signature to appear, you turn it off. If you do want it, you turn it on. Since you don't want it to appear when designing forms, you turn it off.

 

[Ade_kcc]

Very true it's just, as I said, that as the creator of organisational
forms it just seems odd that the development function, for the
organisaton, is subject to the same rules as the user function.

It seems that this issue, of unwanted signatures, is recognised and
Microsoft have issued a fix, for one situation anyway, which does
actually help in this scenario where I want to prevent signatures
being added to the form message.

http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10877_11-36647-3.html

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

That article actually deals with a different issue -- the addition of the user's signature to a new item created with a custom form. I understood your issue to be the addition of the designer's signature to the form itself.

 

[Ade_kcc]

That article actually deals with a different issue -- the addition of the user's signature to a new item created with a custom form. I understood your issue to be the addition of the designer's signature to the form itself.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54

You are, of course, right Sue. It is a different issue, but to this
newbie they seem related.

I fear that you and I will never agree on whether the signature
default in design mode is a 'problem' or a 'feature'