Eric Legault My Eggo

Hey Outlook, where's that folder?

I use Xobni and Outlook 2007's Instant Search quite often.  Once I find and open the e-mail that I've retrieved using either mechanism, I almost always want to find and display the folder where that message is stored.  So here's a quick and handy little macro that will do just that:

Sub DisplayFolderContainingOpenItem()
On Error Resume Next

    Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
    Dim objExpl As Outlook.Explorer
   
    'Don't do anything if nothing is open!
    If ActiveInspector Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
   
    Set objFolder = ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Parent
    objFolder.Display
    Set objExpl = objFolder.GetExplorer
    objExpl.WindowState = olMaximized
   
    Set objExpl = Nothing
    Set objFolder = Nothing
End Sub

Unfortunately there's no way to select the current message in the folder as well - we'll have to wait until the next version of Outlook to see if the Product Team has added such functionality to the object model.  ;-)

ROCK!

MVP Summit 2008 Recap

Well, another year, another MVP Summit.  Like every year, I had a blast.  Two things stand out for me this time around:

1. I got to sing Metallica's "Enter Sandman" with a live band!

MVP Summit Karaoke - Eric and Metallica

(note that I'm wearing a costume given the rock star theme for the party at the Experience Music Project; although that's not too far removed from how I looked in the 80's...)

2. We got to play with the next version of Outlook, codenamed - wait for it - Outlook 14!!!  My favourite new feature - NEWSGROUP SUPPORT!  Finally!!  Here's a screenshot I sneaked from the user experience lab:

 

Just kidding!!  OneNote MVP Ben Schorr and I were dreaming up over beers at the Office Product Group Party how we could develop a newsgroup solution, and the best we could come up with was embedding Windows Live Mail somehow directly into Outlook.  So if it can be done, maybe it would look like that eh?  Well, if you used Paint.NET...

Oh, and thanks D'Arcy for having "I Touch Myself" by The Divinyls stuck in my head non-stop thanks to your gyrations...

Exchange Connections 2008 - cancellation

Unfortunately, due to being too darn busy with other projects, I will not be speaking at the Exchange Connections event this year as I previously announced.  I was really looking forward to finally getting to Florida, butwhatchagonnado.

I'm presenting at Exchange Connections 2008

 

It's official now - I'll be speaking about Exchange Web Services for Exchange 2007 at the Microsoft Exchange Connections 2008 conference in Orlando, FL April 27th-30th.  If you're going to be there, by all means let me know!

Here are the three sessions I'll be doing on April 30th:

EXC22: Building Exchange Solutions With Visual Studio .NET

Let's take a lap around several of the new programming interfaces for Exchange 2007. By using the context of creating simple client or management applications, we'll demonstrate: using the .NET Framework Extensions for Exchange 2007 to work with the iCalendar Namespace to create and modify RFC2445 calendars and appointments; code some common operations with Contacts, Tasks, folders and messages; expand distribution lists; configure Exchange impersonation to get access to multiple mailboxes; create proxy classes to consume Exchange Web Services, and much more!

EXC21: Creative Uses for Exchange Web Services in SharePoint

SharePoint has many collaborative features that are available in team sites, such as Alerts, approval/Task notifications, linking with Outlook 2007, e-mail enabled Document Libraries, etc. However, the majority of this functionality depends on Outlook. What if we could manipulate data in Exchange directly without needing to use an e-mail client? We'll look at hooking Exchange Web Services into the many extensibility areas within SharePoint by utilizing Visual Studio 2008 and SharePoint Designer to develop creative collaborative functions and utilities such as: custom menu items to e-mail links to documents; copying Outlook-style list items to a similar folder in a Mailbox or Public Folder; creating copies of entire Discussion Lists in a Mailbox or Pubic Folder; building Web Parts to monitor Mailbox data or even view OOF/Availability indicators for colleagues - and much more!

EXC20: Porting Your Event Sink Code To Exchange Web Services

Have you developed event sinks that are doing some wonderful things with your pre-2007 servers? Don't throw them away – switch to using either Notification Push operations with Exchange Web Services or create Transport Agents. We'll look at how you can re-write your old VB6 code to use VB.NET with Visual Studio 2008 and leverage the new extensibility features in Exchange 2007.

Editing formulas directly in SharePoint Lists using the datasheet view

Calculated columns in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Lists are quite powerful, allowing you to use many Excel functions and operators to massage data in the current list using the data from other columns.  After you create your formula in a calculated column, if you ever need to make changes you need to go to the Settings page for that column and edit it.  Right?  Right??  No!

 

Here's a sample list containing the URLs of sites that need to be exported using the stsadm.exe tool. 

 

 

I've  created a calculated Export Command column that will automatically create the parameters needed for the stsadm command.  If you want to play along with the home game, create a custom List using the following fields:

 

URL: Text (I just renamed the Title field)

Relative URL: Text

Export Command: Calculated Column

Formula:

=CONCATENATE("stsadm -o export -url ",URL," -filename ""C:\Migration\",[Relative URL],".bak""")

 

I'd make the Relative URL column calculated as well, except the SEARCH and FIND functions do not allow you to start from the end of a string, and I can't think of any way to find the last slash and get the text immediately after.  It's easy if you know that http://servername is a fixed value - just use a MID function with the starting position of the last slash!

 

Anyway, put some sample data in your list, switch to Datasheet view and double-click any cell (even an empty one) in the Export Command column.  Look at this:

 

 

 

It replaces the data with the formula, allowing you to edit it in place.  When you are done, press ENTER and the column's formula is updated with your changes:

 

 

 

Pretty handy!