Save form before send

[Long Nguyen]

(Outlook 2002-sp2)
1) My custom outlook form has a number of mandatory fields (they have some
validation in their control property). What I find is that if I compose a
new form and save it (through File-Save,or through Escape then click Yes on
Save question) so I can come back to it later it would not save it but
instead displaying a validation message for a field (eg. "Pleas enter the
change title"). Is this the intended form behaviour?

Is there a way to allow form to be saved before sent without users having to
enter all mandatory fields? My form has about 30 fields to fill so some
users may want to save the form for sending later.

2) Then if I have entered values for all mandatory fields Outlook would
allow me to save the form, and a copy of the form is saved in the Draft
folder. Problem is that my form is public folder based which means the form
template is available only through a public folder. So if I open the
not-yet-sent form in the Draft folder and if the template is in the form
cache at the time then it's ok, but if the template is not in the cache I
would only see the Message page of the form (not other pages). This leas to
another problem: if I now go to the form public folder and open the form
there I could only see the Message page, since it seems that Outlook has
replaced my form template with the default message template (a result of my
action of opening the form in the Draft folder). Is there a way to get
around this? I am thinking that if I put the form template in the
Organizational form library then users could open forms properly even if
they are in Draft folder.

Thanks
Long

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

1) Move validation from individual control settings to code in the Item_Send event handler.

2) Publish the form to the Organizational Forms library or to each user's Personal Forms library.

 

[Long Nguyen]

Thanks a lot Sue. Your reply confirms my understanding. I learnt developing
of Outlook forms myself, mainly from your book, and this forum is a great
place to get people's advice/ideas on things.

Long

1) Move validation from individual control settings to code in the Item_Send
event handler.

2) Publish the form to the Organizational Forms library or to each user's
Personal Forms library.