Re: Sharing Custom Task Form with Outside Vendor

Sue,

Thanks for your response. I was trying to avoid coding because I have very
little practice. I did buy your book "Microsoft Outlook Programming" but as
my job is primarily administrative and not technology oriented, I have had
very little time to read and/or practice what is in your book. If there is
some way to automatically
generate an email which transmits the information and/or attachments, it
would cut my work time by about 1/3rd. I tried to attach a ppt slide which
illustrated the form I use and the email I am currently generating, with a
diagram detailing which fields from the form I need to populate in the
email. However, the file size was about 200kb, and the board would not
allow it to be posted. If there is a way to send it to you directly so you
can look at it, and you are willing, please let me know. Otherwise, any
other advice you might have for automatically generating an email would be
greatly appreciated. Again, I really appreciate your help, and if this is
too much for you to respond to, I understand. I was hoping to find a
quick/easy way to streamline the process, but if it requires a highly
technical solution, I will have to continue my current method until I can
procure some technical resources to help me.

Yours truly,

Tom Pratt

"Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]" <suemvp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:B8A7B77C-1AC6-4F7C-8E23-8DA9D3679FA6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I drafted a really detailed response to this and then the forum ate it. :(
I'm afraid I don't have the patience to start over again, so I'll give you
the short answer: Your chances of getting this to work are slim. You'd
have
to make sure that both sender and recipient have the form published as the
same message class (and with the "Send Form Definition with Item" box
unchecked) and that neither of the mail servers is stripping the TNEF
content
that the form needs to operate. And then hope that Outlook doesn't through
other quirks in your way, which it's likely to do given that you're
working
with task requests. Plus, since you've hidden the first page, you don't
have
access to the two checkboxes that determine how updates to the task would
be
handled.

I would suggest that the place to streamline this scenario would be in
generating the email and attaching the document -- in other words, stick
to
the way you're already sending it but automate what you're now doing
manually
-- but you seem to want to avoid any code, so I'm not sure how good a
suggestion that is.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook Programming: Jumpstart
for Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
http://www.outlookcode.com/jumpstart.aspx



"HDS Tom" wrote:

Hi All!

I work with a vendor who maintains a database for me containing property
data and documents. I have created a custom task form, so that when I
initiate an action item for the vendor, I can keep track of when I send
it, critical information fields, and when it is acted upon.

Up to now, this has all been a manual process, by which I create the
task, and then generate an email containing the same information and
attaching the appropriate document
files for the vendor to act upon. However, my boss wants me to
"automate" some of my procedures, so we had this idea that if we sent the
custom task form to the vendor, and had them publish it in their task
folder, I could just assign the task to them, rather than creating an
email.

So I have gotten the vendor to publish the form, which when they open a
new blank form, looks just the same as mine. However, I am having a
little trouble with the assigning portion.

Because my form is custom, and the first tab is not visible, when I try
to assign the task, I don't get the requisite "To:" field popping up so I
can insert the vendor's email and send. I modified my form to include
the "To:" field and also to display the "Assigned" status of the task.

However, when I send the task to the vendor, it is sent as an email, and
I can't figure out how to get the fields from the task I send to populate
the fields in the vendor's form. The only fields which populate when the
vendor moves the email/task from the inbox to the task folder are the
normal fields, such as
the subject line, due date. In other words, the only fields which
populate are the standard task fields, not my custom fields. The
information is sent, but only appears as text in an email. The email
lists the fields and the correct information, but the custom form doesn't
take the information
and populate it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please know that I have VERY
limited experience with scripting, so if you offer a scripting solution,
it will have to be VERY detailed for me to implement.

Anyway, thanks in advance for your assistance. Hope everyone had a great
holiday weekend, and a great beginning to their week. Wish mine had
started better, but I guess it could be a lot worse.

Cheers!!

Tom
--
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