From Access to Outlook-Add Your Custom Data to the Outlook Calendar

Probably the most used Microsoft Office Application is Outlook. Often Outlook is open all day to receive emails, schedule appointments, and manage Contact information. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to share data between Outlook and Access.

If you use an Access Database that stores almost any kind of dates such as shipping dates, appointments, service scheduling, and maintenance schedules you may wish you could save that information to the Outlook Calendar with just the click of a button.

In this article, we will show you how to do just that. We will show you how to add data from an Access Form to an Outlook Calendar Appointment with just one mouse click.

One of the best things about this method is its flexibility. You can create an Access Form that holds the precise data you want to save to Outlook. We have set up a Table and Form to hold the Appointment Information we want. Yours can be set up differently. You may use a maintenance schedule, client appointments, project progress dates, or almost any kind of information with a date.

We can add an Appointment to the Outlook Calendar with just one click on our Form’s “Link” button.

The Access and Outlook Appointment Manager

Let us look at the code behind that button. First we need to make sure the Current Record is saved. If a Form is “Dirty” that means there has been a change made to the data on the Form, but it has not yet been saved. In order for Access to make the Form “Dirty = False” it has to save the current data on the Form.

Private Sub btnAddApptToOutlook_Click()
    If Me.Dirty Then
        Me.Dirty = False
    End If  

Next, we check to make sure the appointment has not already been added to Outlook. On our form we have a checkbox that indicates if that has been done. If the appointment already exists, we inform the user and Exit the Sub.

  
If Me.chkAddedToOutlook = True Then
    MsgBox "This appointment has already added to Microsoft Outlook", vbCritical
    ' Exit the procedure
    Exit Sub
Else
    ' Add a new appointment. 

We are using “late binding” so our code works in almost all versions of Outlook. This is crucial if you distribute your Database or take it with you in your thumb drive to use on other computers. However, one drawback of using late binding is that it is slower than early binding. With late binding we use an Object variable:

 
' Use late binding to avoid the "Reference" issue
Dim olapp As Object ' Outlook.Application
Dim olappt As Object ' olAppointmentItem  

This is how we would do it if we were using “early binding”:

 
Dim olApp As Outlook.Application
Dim olappt As Outlook.AppointmentItem
Set olapp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set olappt = olapp.CreateItem(olAppointmentItem)  

We need to know if Outlook is already open because there are two methods of instantiating Outlook and other Office Applications. You use the CreateObject Function if Outlook is not open, and you use the GetObject Function if Outlook is already open.

To determine if Outlook is open we are using the isAppThere Custom Function which we have included at the end of this article. This Function returns True if the application is open, and False if it is not open.

 
If isAppThere("Outlook.Application") = False Then
    ' Outlook is not open, create a new instance
    Set olApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Else
    ' Outlook is already open--use this method
    Set olapp = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application")
End If

An Outlook Appointment is called an Item, and is referenced in Outlook as olAppointmentItem; its constant value is 1. We must use the value 1 in order to create the Appointment Item so we put the 1 in parentheses after “CreateItem”. With late binding, we must use the numbers. In early binding, we could have put olAppointmentItem in the parentheses.

To create a new Appointment Item we use the CreateItem Function instead of the CreateObject Function.

 
Set olAppt = olApp.CreateItem(1) ' olAppointmentItem

Our example adds data from the Form to Outlook Appointment Properties. Your Fields and Form Controls probably will not have the same names as the Outlook Appointment Properties. This is no problem because you can easily manage that difference in code. For example, if you have a TextBox named “txtProjectDueDate”. You can use that as your Outlook “Start” Property like this:

 
Start = Me.txtProjectDueDate  

You may need to use more Appointment Properties than we have in our example. You can use the Object Browserto see the complete list of Appointment Properties. It is a long list with more than enough Properties to meet almost anyone’s needs.

Now let us examine how to add our data to the Appointment Properties:

 
With olAppt 
    ' If There is no Start Date or Time on
    ' the Form use Nz to avoid an error
    
    ' Set the Start Property Value
    .Start = Nz(Me.txtStartDate, "") & " " & Nz(Me.txtStartTime, "")  

“Start” is the first Appointment Property we are setting. Outlook uses both the Date and Time in the Start Property, but our Form has the date and time in seperate TextBoxes. To handle this, we just concatenate the date and time together like this:
Me.txtStartDate & ” ” & Me.txtStartTime

In order to avoid errors, we will use the Nz Function to handle nulls and zero length strings in our TextBoxes or ComboBoxes. The Nz Function gets the value you designate if the value is Null or a Zero Length String after the comma like this: Nz(Me.myTextBox, 0). This will not change the value in the TextBox, but it will change the value in the code.

Outlook does not require that the time be added to the Start Property. However, to avoid errors, if you leave the Start Time blank, then you need to leave the End Time blank also. You can do this if you just want to add the due date for a project without the Time.

The Outlook Appointment Property “End” is not always required but you may get an error if you do not supply any value.

 
    ' Set the End Property Value
    .End = Nz(Me.txtEndDate, "") & " " & Nz(Me.txtEndTime, "")  

Here we are using the Nz Functionto provide a 0 value in case the txtApptLength TextBox is Null.

 
    .Duration = Nz(Me.txtApptLength, 0)     ' vbNullString uses a little less memory than ""
    .Subject = Nz(Me.cboApptDescription, vbNullString)
   
    .Body = Nz(Me.txtApptNotes, vbNullString) 

We have provided a Combo box to select Locations from a Table to add to our Form along with other information about the location in unbound TextBoxes. Here we add the Outlook Location Property.

 
    .Location = Nz(Me.txtLocation, vbNullString)  

If we want Outlook to Remind us when our appointment is near we check the chkAppointReminder Checkbox on our Form and enter the number of minutes we want to be reminded before our Appointment. If the chkAppointReminder Checkbox is checked but we forget to enter our reminder minutes it will cause an error. To avoid that error we use code to change no minutes to 30 minutes.

 
    If Me.chkApptReminder = True Then
        If IsNull(Me.txtReminderMinutes) Then
            Me.txtReminderMinutes.Value = 30
        End If
        .ReminderOverrideDefault = True
        .ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = Me.txtReminderMinutes
        .ReminderSet = True
    End If  

Now we can save the Appointment Properties and start cleaning up:

 
        .Save
    End WithEnd If ' Release the Outlook object variables.
    Set olAppt = Nothing
    Set olApp = Nothing    ' Set chkAddedToOutlook to checked
    Me.chkAddedToOutlook = True

    ' Save the Current Record because we checked chkAddedToOutlook
    If Me.Dirty Then
        Me.Dirty = False
    End If

    ' Inform the user
    MsgBox "Appointment Added!", vbInformation
End Sub

Here is the code by Rick Dobson that checks if Outlook is open.

 
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : isAppThere
' Author    : Rick Dobson, Ph.D - Programming Microsoft Access 2000
' Purpose   : To check if an Application is Open
' Arguments : appName The name of the Application
' Example   : isAppThere("Outlook.Application")
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'
Function isAppThere(appName) As Boolean
On Error Resume Next
 
    Dim objApp As Object
 
    isAppThere = True
 
    Set objApp = GetObject(, appName)
    If Err.Number <> 0 Then isAppThere = False
 
End Function

We have shown you how you can transfer Calendar data from Access to Outlook with just one mouse click using the Appointments Database. With just a little modification of the code, you can use your present Forms to send information with Dates to the Outlook Calendar.

Note: Code Updated 7/10/2010 – The updated code works with Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010. Get the complete updated code at our free Code Samples page.

Other free downloads include our new Microsoft Access and SQL Azure and demonstration application which uses Microsoft Access and SQL Azure to leverage the power of cloud computing.

More Free Downloads:
Us or UK/AU Pop-up Calendar
Report Date Dialog Form in US or UK/AU Version.
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Code Samples

Get the Access and Outlook Appointment Manager to manage all of your Outlook Calendar Appointments and Access dated information.

Happy computing,
Patrick (Pat) Wood
Gaining Access

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