Background: I’m writing an application in C# (.NET 3.5), that looks at multiple users Outlook 2003 calendars (using COM objects), gets the appointments and inserts the data for those appointments into a database.
Problem: After the first users calendar, any recurring items on the following calendars, will always have a start and end time of the first occurrence of that item. I’m releasing the COM Objects between users (and during, if the user has a lot of items), and The item collection is being restricted correctly (due to there only being a handful of the recurring tasks inserted (albeit the wrong start/end) instead of infinite from the “no end” tasks). The correct start/end time is part of the requirements, having the information available for this or another application to work out how much free time a user has for a given range of dates, and working hours.
Code: (Variable declarations omitted, they’re at the top of the relevant functions)
Looping through the users (in Main()):
foreach (DataRow drUserCalendar in dtCalendars.Rows)
{
//for each calendar we're looking at, export their calendar data and put it in the database
try
{
appOutlook = new Outlook.Application();
ExportCalendar(drUserCalendar);
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(appOutlook);
GC.Collect();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//report error
}
}
Extracting information from the calendar
static void ExportCalendar(DataRow drUser)
{
strDisplayName = drUser["DisplayName"].ToString();
strUserID = drUser["ID"].ToString();
int.TryParse(drUser["PreviousDays"].ToString(), out intPrevious);
int.TryParse(drUser["FutureDays"].ToString(), out intFuture);
dtmAllowedPreviousStart = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-intPrevious);
dtmAllowedFutureStart = DateTime.Now.AddDays(intFuture);
nsOne = appOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI");
nsOne.Logon(null, null, false, false);
rcpOne = nsOne.CreateRecipient(strDisplayName);
intCount = 0;
if (rcpOne.Resolve())
{
fldOne = nsOne.GetSharedDefaultFolder(rcpOne, Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar);
strRestrict = "[Start] > '" + MIN_START_DATE.ToString("g") + "' And [End] < '" + MAX_START_DATE.ToString("g") + "'";
itms = fldOne.Items;
itms.Sort("[Start]", Type.Missing);
itms.IncludeRecurrences = true;
itmsRestricted = itms.Restrict(strRestrict);
itmsRestricted.Sort("[Start]", Type.Missing);
itmsRestricted.IncludeRecurrences = true;
blnIsRecurring = false;
dicRecurringTaskTracker = new Dictionary<string, int>();
foreach (object objOne in itmsRestricted)
{
if (intCount >= 100 || blnIsRecurring)
{
//release COM objects. Outlook doesn't like you having more than 250 ish items without cleaning up.
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(appOutlook);
appOutlook = new Outlook.Application();
GC.Collect();
intCount = 0;
}
if (objOne is Outlook.AppointmentItem)
{
appItem = (Outlook.AppointmentItem)objOne;
blnException = false;
//get data from the item
strEntryID = appItem.EntryID;
strSubject = appItem.Subject;
strBody = appItem.Body;
dtmStart = appItem.Start;
dtmEnd = appItem.End;
blnException = EXCEPTIONS.Contains(strSubject);
//if the item is an exception we're done with it.
if (!blnException)
{
strRecurrenceInterval = "";
strRecurrenceType = "";
strRecurrenceInfo = "";
//check if it's a recurring task.
blnIsRecurring = appItem.IsRecurring;
if (blnIsRecurring)
{
//check to see if we've already had a task from this series
if (!dicRecurringTaskTracker.Keys.Contains(strEntryID))
{
//Start at 0 so the first (this) task
//is number 1.
dicRecurringTaskTracker.Add(strEntryID, 0);
}
//update number
dicRecurringTaskTracker[strEntryID] += 1;
//change the subject to add the count on the end
strEntryID = strEntryID + '-' + dicRecurringTaskTracker[strEntryID].ToString();
//it's a recurring task, so we need to find out when/how often.
rpTaskRecurrence = appItem.GetRecurrencePattern();
rtTaskRecurrenceType = rpTaskRecurrence.RecurrenceType;
strRecurrenceType = rtTaskRecurrenceType.ToString();
strRecurrenceInterval = rpTaskRecurrence.Interval.ToString();
switch (strRecurrenceType)
{
case "olRecursDaily":
case "olRecursMonthNth":
case "olRecursWeekly":
strRecurrenceInfo = rpTaskRecurrence.DayOfWeekMask.ToString();
break;
case "olRecursMonthly":
strRecurrenceInfo = rpTaskRecurrence.DayOfMonth.ToString();
break;
}
}
if (strEntryID != null && strSubject != null && dtmStart != null && dtmEnd != null
&& (intPrevious == 0 || (dtmStart > dtmAllowedPreviousStart)) && (intFuture == 0 || (dtmStart < dtmAllowedFutureStart)))
{
//build up the SQL
strSQL = "EXEC UpdateCalendarEntry ";
strSQL += "@EntryID='" + strEntryID + "', ";
strSQL += "@Subject='" + strSubject.Replace("'", "''") + "', ";
strSQL += "@Body='" + strSubject.Replace("'", "''") + "', ";
strSQL += "@StartDate='" + dtmStart.ToString("dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss") + "', ";
strSQL += "@EndDate='" + dtmEnd.ToString("dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss") + "', ";
strSQL += "@UserCalendarID=" + strUserID + ",";
strSQL += "@Recurring = " + blnIsRecurring.ToString() + ",";
strSQL += "@RecurrenceType = '" + strRecurrenceType + "',";
strSQL += "@RecurrenceInterval = '" + strRecurrenceInterval + "',";
strSQL += "@RecurrenceInfo = '" + strRecurrenceInfo + "';";
try
{
//Execute SQL
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//Print error message
MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
}
}
}
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(appItem);
GC.Collect();
}
strEntryID = null;
strSubject = null;
strBody = null;
intCount++;
}
//finished looping, do some clean up.
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(nsOne);
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(rcpOne);
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(fldOne);
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(itms);
Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(itmsRestricted);
GC.Collect();
}
else
{
throw new Exception("Could not resolve name");
}
}
After testing I’ve found that the issue relates to my (or whoever runs the application) permissions on the users (shared) calendar(s) that are being looked at.
It works on the first user because that’s myself in this case. It doesn’t work on users after that because i don’t have sufficient rights it seems (confirmed by having my colleague changing it so default users are “owners” on his calendar and running the application again, and it working for his calendar).
I have since tried to use
GetOccurrence(DateTime)(surrounded with a while loop), however that lead to the same issue. The function would error when there was no occurrence (as expected), but when it found an occurrence it would return a null object.However because I wasn’t using the object for anything other than getting the start and end date of the task, I worked it out manually (I had the original task, meaning i could get the duration, by incrementing each day until I get an occurrence I’d get the reccurring tasks start date, and using the duration of the task I calculated the end date).
It’s not an ideal solution, but if you’re just wanting to get recurring tasks it’s simple enough to do (though resource consuming if you have a lot of reccurring tasks and are looping for a long period of time)