In a timespan of 2 weeks, questions have been popping up about how to use InfoPath to create Outlook tasks and appointments.
I don’t usually do any Outlook programming, but since these questions were being asked frequently, I’ve decided to tackle the issue.
InfoPath does not provide any support for creating Outlook tasks or appointments, so if you want to create a task, appointment, or any other object in Outlook, you can use the Outlook Object Model to do so.
Suppose you’ve created an InfoPath form template with 2 date fields named startDate and endDate, 2 time fields named startTime and endTime, and 3 text fields named subject, body, and location. Add a button to the InfoPath form template and create a Clicked event handler for it.
The code for each of the solutions described below should go in the Clicked event handler for the button. The solutions work for forms filled out through the InfoPath client application and for adding appointments and tasks to one’s own calendar and tasks list in Outlook.
Use InfoPath to create an Outlook appointment
There are 2 ways you can use an InfoPath form to create an Outlook appointment:
- Write code that adds an AppointmentItem to the calendar in Outlook.
- Convert the InfoPath form to a vCalendar file, open the file, and then save the appointment in Outlook.
Where the first method is concerned, you could use the following base article from the Microsoft Support web site: How to create an appointment by using Outlook Object Model in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET. I’ve converted the code from the preceding article to C#. You can download the code.
Where the second method is concerned, you’d have to use the data from the InfoPath form and create a text file with a .vcs extension. The code I’ve written converts data from an InfoPath form, writes it to a local file, and then automatically opens the file so that it can be saved as an appointment in Outlook.
Note: You’ll have to give your InfoPath form template Full Trust for it to work with the code.
Use InfoPath to create an Outlook task
Outlook tasks can be created similarly to appointments. The only difference is that you’ll have to use a TaskItem object instead of an AppointmentItem object. You can download the code.
Note: You’ll have to give your InfoPath form template Full Trust for it to work with the code.
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