Thursday, July 23, 2009

SPlus [Outlook Add-in] Convert email thread to a Meeting Request

This is built using VS2010 Beta1 and requires .NET 3.5 to run.

Download and Install from http://splusoutlookaddin.codeplex.com/

SCENARIO & USE: When you have a long email thread with many folks in it, have you wished you could just setup a follow-up meeting for it and also include the email thread (with its attachments, in order to preserve the context)? You can do so in ONE click using the new custom actions button – Schedule Meeting
There is a bit more to it - if you want to do the follow-up 1:1 with the sender (when there is just one person in To line and no one in CC), then the meeting room location shows up as the ’s office (Of course you can edit and change it to your office as well).

See the image that shows the 'Custom Actions' button that has 'Schedule Meeting' button under it.



REQUIREMENTS:
I have test only on the following Vista, Windows 7 RC, Outlook 2007 and above. It needs .NET 3.5 SP1.

INSTALL:
1. Ensure that Outlook is not running.
2. Extract the SPlus folder contents and click 'setup' to install
3. Open Outlook.
4. Open an email item from your inbox. You should see 'Custom Actions' button with 'Schedule Meeting' button under it. Click it to see if the add-in does its job!

UNINSTALL:
1. Ensure that Outlook is not running.
2. Go to Control Panel - Add Remove / Uninstall programs. You can uninstall SPlus from there
3. Start Outlook again. Open a email item inbox to ensure that you do not see the 'Custom Actions' button with 'Schedule Meeting' button under it.

Note: If you aleady have a Custom Actions button, with some add-in, the Splus just adds 'Schedule Meeting' button under it.

Try it out and let me know!

TECHNICAL RESOURCES
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms268731(VS.80).aspx

Cheers!
Ashwin

4 comments:

Unknown said...

hi. thanks for developing the custom function for replay all. you've identified a feature which is clearly lacking in outlook 2007.

anyhow, i'm encountering an error stating that Setup has detected that the "file 'C:\Users\kwy\AppData\Local\Temp\VSDB5F6.tmp\VSTOR40\vstor40_x86.exe' has changed since it was initially published."

i've installed Visual Studio 2010 via web installer to ensure that the right runtime is used.

what could be wrong?

-kuan yew

A K said...

I will soon upgrade to VS 2010 & .NET 4 Beta 2.. sorry for the delay!

Rento said...

I would love to use this but I am unable to install it. I get the same error as k. I have installed vstor separately but it does not help.

Is there anyway to install this manually?

WinXP SP3 x86 - Outlook 2007

Thanks

Govind said...

Ashwin .. i installed it ... it seemed to work well.. but then outlook 2007 ... started to give me an error while sending out emails.. the send email does not have a date and sits in the outbox. I was using outlook in cached mode ..
I had to then go to Trust center in outlook and disable ReplyAllAttach .. Now my emails are being sent out ok ..

Is there a way tpo fix this error.. I would love to use Reply all attach