We are writing an MS Outlook plugin. To satisfy our business-logic, it should check all appointments between some dates. We are experiencing several problems with retrieving all items from calendars. We tried two options:
Outlook API. We use the standard logic that is described in MSDN - sort items by [Start], set IncludeRecurrences
to True
and run the Find\Restrict query over calendar items like here. It works fine in our test environment. However, in our customer's environment: For recurring appointments, start and end dates are set to the corresponding dates of a 'master appointment.' For example, in some room's calendar we have a weekly appointment that was created in January, and if we try to find all items in August, we get among others four items of this recurring appointment, but their start and end dates are set to January. But Outlook displays correct dates in the same calendar...
Very bad, but we still have WebDAV! We write a simple test application and try to query all items from the calendar using WebDAV. Of course, we didn't reinvent the wheel and just pasted the code from documentation. The previous problem is solved, but the next one arises: It doesn't return recurring items that were created more than approximately six months ago. I Haven't a clue - there are no parameters restricting 'old' items!
What is wrong? Are we missing something important?
Technical details: Exchange 2003, Outlook 2003-2010. Frankly speaking, the first error disappears if we turn on Cached Exchange Mode, but we can't do that.
var nameSpace = application.GetNamespace("MAPI"); var recepient = nameSpace.CreateRecipient(roomEMail); recepient.Resolve(); var calendar = nameSpace.GetSharedDefaultFolder(recepient, OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar); var filter = string.Format("[Start]<'{1}' AND [End]>'{0}'", dateFrom.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture), dateTo.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) ); var allItems = calendar.Items; allItems.Sort("[Start]"); allItems.IncludeRecurrences = true; var _item = allItems.Find(filter); while (_item != null) { AppointmentItem item = _item as AppointmentItem; if (item != null) { if (item.Subject != "some const") && (item.ResponseStatus != OlResponseStatus.olResponseDeclined) && (item.MeetingStatus != OlMeetingStatus.olMeetingReceivedAndCanceled && item.MeetingStatus != OlMeetingStatus.olMeetingCanceled)) { /* Here we copy item to our internal class. * We need: Subject, Start, End, Organizer, Recipients, MeetingStatus, * AllDayEvent, IsRecurring, RecurrentState, ResponseStatus, * GlobalAppointmentID */ } } _item = allItems.FindNext(); }
Additional research using OutlookSpy shows that the problem is not in our code - the Start\End dates are incorrect inside the API when Cached Exchange Mode is off. But Outlook developers were aware of it, and they somehow display correct dates in calendars! Does anyone know how?
Answer from Outlook Support Escalation Engineer:
Based on this, I can confirm that this is a problem in our product.
Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV, or CalDAV, is an Internet standard allowing a client to access and manage calendar data along with the ability to schedule meetings with users on the same or on remote servers. It lets multiple users in different locations to share, search and synchronize calendar data.
Possible cause:
Here is my code of a PowerShell module that retrieves Outlook items between two dates.
And a little applet to check for changes and send an email including the agenda updates, which comes handy when you don't have mobile access to the Exchange.
Path: Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\Outlook\expcal.ps1
Function Get-OutlookCalendar { <# .Synopsis This function returns appointment items from default Outlook profile .Description This function returns appointment items from the default Outlook profile. It uses the Outlook interop assembly to use the olFolderCalendar enumeration. It creates a custom object consisting of Subject, Start, Duration, Location for each appointment item. .Example Get-OutlookCalendar | where-object { $_.start -gt [datetime]"5/10/2011" -AND $_.start -lt ` [datetime]"5/17/2011" } | sort-object Duration Displays subject, start, duration and location for all appointments that occur between 5/10/11 and 5/17/11 and sorts by duration of the appointment. The sort is the shortest appointment on top. .Notes NAME: Get-OutlookCalendar AUTHOR: ed wilson, msft LASTEDIT: 05/10/2011 08:36:42 KEYWORDS: Microsoft Outlook, Office HSG: HSG-05-24-2011 .Link Http://www.ScriptingGuys.com/blog #Requires -Version 2.0 #> echo Starting... Initialize variables Add-type -assembly "Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook" | out-null $olFolders = "Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlDefaultFolders" -as [type] $olCalendarDetail = "Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlCalendarDetail" -as [type] echo ... Getting ref to Outlook and Calendar ... $outlook = new-object -comobject outlook.application $namespace = $outlook.GetNameSpace("MAPI") $folder = $namespace.getDefaultFolder($olFolders::olFolderCalendar) echo ... Calculating dates ... $now = Get-Date -Hour 0 -Minute 00 -Second 00 echo From $a To $b echo ... Getting appointments ... $Appointments = $folder.Items $Appointments.IncludeRecurrences = $true $Appointments.Sort("[Start]") echo ... Setting file names ... $oldfile = "$env:USERPROFILE\outlook-calendar.bak" echo oldfile: $oldfile $newfile = "$env:USERPROFILE\outlook-calendar.txt" echo newfile: $newfile $calfile = "$env:USERPROFILE\outlook-calendar.ics" echo calfile: $calfile echo ... Exporting calendar to $calfile ... $calendarSharing = $folder.GetCalendarExporter() $calendarSharing.CalendarDetail = $olCalendarDetail::olFullDetails $calendarSharing.IncludeWholeCalendar = $false $calendarSharing.IncludeAttachments = $false $calendarSharing.IncludePrivateDetails = $true $calendarSharing.RestrictToWorkingHours = $false $calendarSharing.StartDate = $now.AddDays(-30) $calendarSharing.EndDate = $now.AddDays(30) echo $calendarSharing $calendarSharing.SaveAsICal($calfile) echo ... Backing up $newfile into $oldfile ... if (!(Test-Path $newfile)) { echo "" |Out-File $newfile } # Backup old export into $oldfile if (Test-Path $oldfile) { echo "Deleting old backup file $oldfile" del $oldfile } echo " ... moving $newfile into $oldfile ... " move $newfile $oldfile echo "... Generating text report to file $newfile ..." $Appointments | Where-object { $_.start -gt $now -AND $_.start -lt $now.AddDays(+7) } | Select-Object -Property Subject, Start, Duration, Location, IsRecurring, RecurrenceState | Sort-object Start | Out-File $newfile -Width 100 echo "... Comparing with previous export for changes ..." $oldsize = (Get-Item $oldfile).length $newsize = (Get-Item $newfile).length if ($oldsize -ne $newsize ) { echo "!!! Detected calendar change. Sending email..." $mail = $outlook.CreateItem(0) #2 = high importance email header $mail.importance = 2 $mail.subject = $env:computername + “ Outlook Calendar“ $mail.Attachments.Add($newfile) $mail.Attachments.Add($calfile) $text = Get-Content $newfile | Out-String $mail.body = “See attached file...“ + $text #for multiple email, use semi-colon ; to separate $mail.To = “[email protected]“ $mail.Send() } else { echo "No changes detected in Calendar!" } } #end function Get-OutlookCalendar Function Get-OutlookCalendarTest { echo starting... Add-type -assembly "Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook" | out-null $olFolders = "Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlDefaultFolders" -as [type] $outlook = new-object -comobject outlook.application $namespace = $outlook.GetNameSpace("MAPI") $folder = $namespace.getDefaultFolder($olFolders::olFolderCalendar) $a = Get-Date -Hour 0 -Minute 00 -Second 00 $b = (Get-Date -Hour 0 -Minute 00 -Second 00).AddDays(7) echo From $a To $b $Appointments = $folder.Items $Appointments.IncludeRecurrences = $true $Appointments.Sort("[Start]") $Appointments | Where-object { $_.start -gt $a -AND $_.start -lt $b } | Select-Object -Property IsRecurring, RecurrenceState, Subject, Start, Location } #end function Get-OutlookCalendarTest
This is the code to invoke the PowerShell function in the module:
Path: Documents\WindowsPowerShell\mono.ps1
Import-Module -Name Outlook\expcal.psm1 -Force $i=0 #infinite loop for calling connect function while(1) { $i = $i +1 Write-Output "Running task Get-OutlookCalendar ($i)" Get-OutlookCalendar start-sleep -seconds 300 }
To run the PowerShell script, use powershell.exe. To run this on startup, a shortcut on "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\":
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\mono.ps1"
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