GroupWise Object API or SOAP

[chipshotx]

anyone?

 

[JeykleHyde]

After a very quick look at both I would choose to spend the time looking into GroupWise Object API over SOAP. Mostly because everything that I look at as far as SOAP starts going into XML and SOAP seems to be more centered around web based applications. Web based applications are wonderful if you need a web based application but if you can do what you need to do without the web bullshit you will have a better, more stable application with half the coding.

 

[chipshotx]

I need to be able to access the calendar to add appointments, etc. from an ASP.NET application. Someone at the usergroup suggested SOAP as it had more of a future but that the Object API would be easier to learn and is more robust at theis point.

 

[JeykleHyde]

What OS will the application run on? Can't you get to the calendar through Windows API or through an Outlook object?

 

[chipshotx]

It's a Windows server. I don't know I'm just getting in to this.

 

[JeykleHyde]

Here I found this for you.

http://zones.advisor.com/doc/17330

Add a Microsoft Outlook Appointment from ASP.NET

Add appointments to your users' Outlook calendars from your Web site.


By Ken Getz, technical editor

​

There are 4 reader comments on this topic. Add yours!​

Q: Recently, I visited a Microsoft site to sign up for an upcoming event. When I was done, the site offered me the option to create an Outlook appointment for the item. When I clicked the button, the site created a new appointment item on my computer, which I saved in Outlook. How did they do that? How could they communicate with my copy of Outlook, for their server? I'd like to do this on my own sites! -- Melony

A: Funny, my co-author Paul Sheriff recently showed me some code that did something similar (it helps to have smart friends, obviously). When you visit a site that creates a calendar item for you, the site simply sends a standard vcalendar item in the response stream -- it's up to you to save the item in Outlook.

I modified Paul's code to do exactly what you're requesting -- it's not all that hard, once you know the tricks. The important part is getting the basic concept: If you want to generate an Outlook appointment from a Web page, your job is to write information into the Response stream, and that information must include headers that indicate to the browser that you're sending an appointment.
You might add a button to a page, and add this code to the button's Click event handler:

Dim icalendar As String = BuildApptItem()
Response.ContentType = "text/x-vCalendar"
Response.AppendHeader("content-disposition", _
"inline; filename=foo.vcs")
Response.Write(icalendar)
Response.End()

Setting the ContentType property and appending information into the header are crucial steps for this process.

You'll also have to create the content of the appointment item, which is all in the BuildApptItem method:

Private Function BuildApptItem() As String
' Obviously, these values would come from the UI somewhere...
Return BuildVCalendar(#12/5/2005#, _
#12/5/2005 2:00:00 AM#, "Visit with Mom", _
"Yearly visit", 3)
End Function

The BuildApptItem method calls another method, BuildVCalendar, passing in start and end dates, a description, a summary/title, and a priority value. Normally, you'd get these values from the user interface; in this example, I've hard-coded them. The BuildVCalendar procedure actually builds up the necessary information for the vcalendar item:

Private Function BuildVCalendar(ByVal startDate As DateTime, _
ByVal endDate As DateTime, ByVal description As String, _
ByVal summary As String, ByVal priority As Integer) As String
Dim sw As New System.IO.StringWriter

sw.WriteLine("BEGIN: VCALENDAR")
sw.WriteLine("VERSION:1.0")
sw.WriteLine("BEGIN: VEVENT")
'EXAMPLE: sw.WriteLine("DTSTART:20050314T160000Z ")
sw.WriteLine("DTSTART:{0:yyyyMMdd\THHmmss\Z}", _
startDate.ToUniversalTime)
sw.WriteLine("DTEND:{0:yyyyMMdd\THHmmss\Z}", _
endDate.ToUniversalTime)
sw.WriteLine("DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:{0}", _
description)
sw.WriteLine("SUMMARY;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:{0}", summary)
sw.WriteLine("PRIORITY:{0}", priority)
sw.WriteLine("END:VEVENT")
sw.WriteLine("END:VCALENDAR")
Return sw.ToString()

End Function

There are many more items that make up the body of the vcalendar item. For more information, you can start with Microsoft's KB article 287625 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;287625). For demo purposes, however, the fields included here do the trick.

To try out the page, simply run the project and click on the button. You'll be prompted to open or save the calendar item, and if you select Open, you'll see a new calendar item. (If you click on Save, you'll save the VCS file to disk, and will still have to open it and save it in Outlook to have the item appear in your calendar.)

Obviously, there's a lot more to this technique, but Paul's code got me started creating a simple solution to your question.

-- Ken

 

[chipshotx]

Thanks, but the client uses GroupWise not Outlook. Am I overlooking something in there?

 

[JeykleHyde]

No, it was me reading but not reading. Use the Groupwise api. It will probably work with less headaches than SOAP and with less overhead.

 

[chipshotx]

yeah, seems to be the way to go

 

[Bootay]

Let's be honest - anything using GroupWise has a short lifetime ahead of it. That product is dead, dead, dead.