Accessing Exchange using CDO from VO

Accessing Exchange using CDO

By default Windows install CDO = 1.21 onto clients that use Exchange server. This provides us with a nice object model for sending email, querying mailboxes, public folders and shared add= ress books.

setup a profile

To start using CDO we need a va= lid Session and logon to that, sessions are managed by profiles which can be dynamically created or we can use existing user-profiles setup in the user’s profile. When Outlook is installed for a user, there is at le= ast one profile called Outlook. A user can setup as many profiles as needed an= d a profile can be set as the default, or Outlook can be instructed to show a profile selection dialog at startup.

Profiles are managed through the Control Panel, by clicking the Mail option, Show profiles button.

The CDO Client proxy.=

You will find the Microsoft CDO= 1.21 Type library in the list of COM-Server the VO Automation Server Base Class Generation tool. You can automatically generate all classes, but you need = to note that for this type library VO will not generate the entire structure.= So, you will have to do them one by one. This also means VO will not use the generated class names for the return values of the properties that return objects so you will need to manually replace OleAutoO= bject with the appropriate classes. The other option you have is to use the AEF = (0 VOCDObase.aef) included with the samples. What causes this is the fact tha= t all property return values for this type library are defined as Variant so you= will probably want to add a bit of ‘strong typing’.

The start of everything is the session object

All CDO code needs to start wit= h a session object and logon, this will either crea= te or use an existing profile. Simply creating a Session and calling Logon will = use the settings you have set using the Control panel and optionally display a profile selection dialog. You will normally get a valid Session object so = you will have to check to see if the Logon worked from your code by actually d= oing a query for some data, for example checking the inbox of the current user. Consider this Logon method out of the sample included with the article/ses= sion:

METHOD Logon( ) CLASS MainDialog=

= ;

BEGIN SEQUENCE &nb= sp;

SELF<= span class=3DGramE>:oSession :=3D= _VOCDO__Session{}

SELF<= span class=3DGramE>:oSession:Logon()

SELF<= span class=3DGramE>:oDCResult:TextValue

" has &quo= t;+AsString(oSession:Inbox:Message= s:Count)+;

" messages.&quo= t;

RECOVER=

= ; SELF:oDCResult:TextValue :=3D "Logon failed&q= uot;

= ; SELF:oSession :=3D NULL_OBJECT

END

RETURN NIL=

Functionality the Session object offers=

AddressBook (TODO: Insert Addressbook picture)

The Addres= sbook method shows a familiar dialog allowing you to search, modify, add and pick recipients.

METHOD Address= Book( ) CLASS dlgAppointments=

LOCAL oRec AS _VOCDO_Recipients

LOCAL dwI, dwRecipients AS DWORD

= ; oRec :=3D SELF:oSession:AddressBook()

= ; IF oRec # NULL_OBJECT

= ; dwRecipients :=3D oRec:Co= unt

= ; FOR dwI := =3D 1 TO dwRecipients

= ; &= nbsp; SELF:oDCRecipient:TextValue +=3D ;

oRec:[Item, dwI ]:Name+"; "

= ; NEXT =

= ; ENDIF

RETURN NIL=

(TODO= insert links to MSDN?CDO references here, research wha= t can be done from Clients, what from server)

So far we have only looked at w= hat CDO 1.21 provides, however there is much more to CDO. When you install Exchange, it installs a few more libraries that provide interesting server oriented capabilities but there’s also CDOEx which offers extended functionalities such as sending Newsgroup messages.<= o:p>

Some recent (Jan. 2007) news on= CDO:

Updates to the downloads of CDO and MAPI/CDO are now available. = Here are the links:

CDO 1.21: (download of CDO for use with Outlook 2007)

http://www.microsoft.= com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3D2714320D-C997-4DE1-986F-24F081725D36= &displaylang=3Den

MAPI/CDO download: (standalone package of MAPI and CDO for use on Exchange 2007 servers and o= ther machines that don't already have MAPI)

http://www.microsoft.= com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3DE17E7F31-079A-43A9-BFF2-0A110307611E= &displaylang=3Den

And some details on = the updates:

CDO 1.21:

Fixed installer not to install with any version of Outlook prior to Outlook 2007
Many, MANY timezo= ne fixes, including support for the upcoming 2007 DST changes here in the States
Fixed a heap corruption issue

MAPI/CDO download:

Improved support for public folder free Exchange 2007 environments (I have a blog coming on this).
Registry keys that indicate MAPI is installed weren't being set properly.
Since this ships the same version of CDO.dll as the CDO download, it includes those fixes as well.

Version Numb= ers:

Both packages include version 6.5.7888.0 of their respective binaries.