I have a .NET web app (running on IIS webserver) that needs to seamlessly
create an appointment in the user's Outlook(2003) calendar. I don't have
access to exchange so that's not even an option.

I've been able to create appointments in my Outlook using a .NET web app
from my development environment where I have IIS running on my system as well
as Outlook installed on my system. Worked nicely. But when I tried to run
it on a remote IIS webserver where Outlook is not installed it failed
miserably. I've looked into installing Outlook on the IIS server, but
everything I've read indicates that Outlook doesn't work well in that
environment. Additionally, Outlook will not have access to the user's
profile.

Since the user has Outlook open and I don't have to access the profile I've
tried using ActiveX to load Outlook.Application client-side but ActiveX has
been blocked.

Any ideas?

Any help appreciated.

caeriel

You should be using iCalendar for this, not the Outlook object model.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming:
Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54

"caeriel" wrote:

Sue:
Thank you so much for your timely reply.

I'm not familiar with iCalendar; my research indicates that a file must be
created and emailed as an attachment to the user which the user must open and
accept. The same is true with a weblink, both require user interaction.
What I'm looking for is complete automation and transparency to the user:
the user clicks on a button to complete a web form. At the same time an
appointment is created in their Outlook calendar corresponding to a date
displayed in the web form they just completed without any further action on
their part.

Is this something I can do with iCalendar? If this is not possible with
iCalendar do you have any idea how I might do this?

caeriel

"Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]" wrote:

iCalendar is an Internet specification for calendar information sharing that
can be implemented in a number of ways to meet the requirements of different
applications. In a typical web application, the iCalendar information is
generated on-demand from a database and presented as the appropriate MIME
type to the user, who sees it in whatever UI his/her iCalendar-capable
application displays it. An Outlook user would see a new appointment and can
click Save to save it. A web search for "iCalendar ASP.NET" should turn up
lots of useful information for you.

Adding a calendar item directly to a user's Calendar through client-side
Outlook automation generally is not possible, because of ActiveX and other
Outlook security. An alternative would be to create a downloadable component
that the user could install that your page could interact with.

Sue:
Again, I appreciate your timely responses.

This functionality is to be used internally....
I'll take a look at WebDAV. If it's something I can do without directly
interacting programatically with Exchange(2003) then it might work. We
programmers have been denied access to Exchange... we are not even allowed
to write "read-only" scripts against Exchange.

Again,
many thanks
caeriel

"Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]" wrote: