In a previous article, we looked at how to automate Microsoft Outlook to create and send a new email message. This time around, we'll use Ruby to extract appointments data from the Outlook Calendar, delete an appointment, and create a new appointment.
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 Calendar folder, this number is 9:
calendar = mapi.GetDefaultFolder(9)
The calendar folder's
Items method returns a collection of all appointments, which you can iterate over. Each appointment object includes dozens of properties. The following code prints out six of the most-often used properties:
calendar.Items.each do |appointment|
puts appointment.Subject
puts appointment.Location
puts appointment.Start
puts appointment.Duration
puts appointment.End
puts appointment.Body
end
To delete an appointment, call its
Delete method. For example, the following code locates an appointment based on its Subject value, then deletes it, if found:
calendar.Items.each do |appointment|
if appointment.Subject == 'Punch Bud Selig in the Nose'
appointment.Delete
end
end
To create a new appointment, call the Outlook Application object's
CreateItem method, passing it the number 1, which represents a Calendar Item. This returns a new Appointment object:
appointment = outlook.CreateItem(1)
Then set values for various properties of the new Appointment object:
appointment.BusyStatus = 2
appointment.Start = '7/29/2007 11:00 AM'
appointment.Duration = 300
appointment.Subject = 'Baseball Hall of Fame Induction'
appointment.Body = 'Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr.'
appointment.Location = 'Cooperstown, NY'
appointment.ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = 15
appointment.ReminderSet = true
The
BusyStatus value is an integer with the following possible values:
olFree = 0
olTentative = 1
olBusy = 2
olOutOfOffice = 3
The
Duration value is an integer representing the appointment length in minutes.
For an all-day event, forget the
Duration property and instead set the
AllDayEvent property to
true:
appointment.AllDayEvent = true
To make an appointment recurring, you'll want to work with the Appointment object's Recurrence child object. You get this object by calling the
GetRecurrencePattern method:
recurrence = appointment.GetRecurrencePattern
Now you'll set the
RecurrenceType to one of the following values:
0 -- To set an appointment that occurs each and every day.
1 -- To set an appointment that occurs on the same day each week.
2 -- To set an appointment that occurs on the same day each month.
5 -- To set an appointment that occurs on the same day each year.
So, for an appointment that occurs on this day and time (as defined in your
Start property above) each week:
recurrence.RecurrenceType = 1
Next, we'll set the
PatternStartDate property. This value needs to be on or before the
Start value defined above:
recurrence.PatternStartDate = '8/6/2007'
Finally, we set the
PatternEndDate property:
recurrence.PatternEndDate = '8/27/2007'
When you've completed setting property values, call the Appointment object's
Save method:
appointment.Save
And there you have it. Further details can be found in this
Microsoft TechNet article.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Post a comment here or send me email.
Thanks for stopping by!
