Automating Outlook with Ruby: Tasks

In our last episode, we used Ruby to extract appointments data from the Outlook Calendar, delete an appointment, and create a new appointment. Today we'll look at managing Outlook Tasks with Ruby.

Getting Existing Tasks

As usual, we'll use the win32ole library to create a new instance (or connect to a currently running instance) of the Outlook application object:

require 'win32ole'
outlook = WIN32OLE.new('Outlook.Application')

Next we'll get the MAPI namespace:

mapi = outlook.GetNameSpace('MAPI')

Outlook consists of several Folder objects, including Inbox, Tasks, and Calendar. To get a folder object, call the MAPI object's GetDefaultFolder method, passing it an integer representing the folder to return. For the Tasks folder, this number is 13:

tasks = mapi.GetDefaultFolder(13)

The Tasks folder's Items method returns a collection of all tasks, which you can iterate over. The following code prints out some of the most-often used properties for each task:

for task in tasks.Items
    puts task.Subject
    puts task.Body
    puts task.DueDate
    puts task.PercentComplete
    puts task.Status
    puts task.Importance
    puts task.LastModificationTime
end

The Status method/property returns an integer, representing one of the following values:

0 -- Not started
1 -- In progress
2 -- Complete
3 -- Waiting on someone else
4 -- Deferred

The Importance method/property returns an integer, representing one of the following values:

0 -- Low
1 -- Normal
2 -- High

Filtering Your Tasks Collection

You can filter your collection of Task items by calling the Items collection's Restrict method, passing it a filter string. The following code gets all 'Order Yankees World Series Tickets' tasks, and then deletes each one:

for task in tasks.Items.Restrict("[Subject] = 'Order Yankees World Series Tickets'")
    task.Delete
end

Other possible filters include:

tasks.Items.Restrict("[Status] = 'Not started'")
tasks.Items.Restrict("[Importance] = 'High'")

As illustrated in the above example, to delete a Task, call its Delete method.

Creating New Tasks

To create a new task, call the Outlook Application object's CreateItem method, passing it the number 3, which represents a Task Item. This returns a new Task object:

task = outlook.CreateItem(3)

Then set values for various properties of the new Task object:

task.Subject = 'Send flowers to wife'
task.Body = 'Call flower shop and send roses.'
task.ReminderSet = true
task.ReminderTime = '7/19/2007 12:00 PM'
task.DueDate = '7/20/2007 12:00 PM'
task.ReminderPlaySound = true
task.ReminderSoundFile = 'C:\Windows\Media\Ding.wav'

When you've completed setting property values, call the Task object's Save method:

task.Save

Further details can be found in this Microsoft TechNet article.

As always, feel free to post a comment here or send me email with questions, comments, or suggestions.

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