Article ID: 294461
Article Last Modified on 11/23/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q294461
SUMMARY
This article describes how to use Visual Basic or Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) and the FreeBusy method in Outlook to determine the next free time for a particular recipient.
MORE INFORMATION
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The function in this section accepts a string value that contains the alias of the recipient and returns the date and time of the next available free time period according to the recipient's Free/Busy information.
If the alias cannot be resolved, the function returns the invalid date, 1/1/4501. This date is commonly used by Outlook to represent an empty date field. If you programmatically store this date in an Outlook field, the word "None" appears in the field's control.
If the current time period for the recipient is marked as "free," the function returns the time that marked the beginning of the period, which is most likely in the past. For instance, if the current time is 1:43 PM and the recipient is currently marked as "free," this function returns the current date and a time of 1:30:00 PM.
In this sample code, time periods are measured in 30 minute increments. You can change this by modifying the value that is assigned to the intSlotLength variable.
Variable data types are commented for compatibility with VBScript.
Function GetNextFreeTime(strAlias) ' As Date
Dim olApplication ' As Outlook.Application
Dim olSession ' As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim olRecipient ' As Outlook.Recipient
Dim intSlotLength ' As Integer
Dim strFreeBusy ' As String
Dim intCurrentSlot ' As Integer
Dim intFreeSlot ' As Integer
Dim dblFreeSlot ' As Double
Dim dtmFreeSlot ' As Date
'get a reference to the Outlook session
Set olApplication = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set olSession = olApplication.Session
'get a reference to the recipient
Set olRecipient = olSession.CreateRecipient(strAlias)
olRecipient.Resolve
'if the alias did not resolve, return an invalid date.
If Not olRecipient.Resolved Then
GetNextFreeTime = #1/1/4501#
Exit Function
End If
'get the free busy string
intSlotLength = 30
strFreeBusy = olRecipient.FreeBusy(Date, intSlotLength, True)
'calculate the position of *now* in the free busy string
intCurrentSlot = Int(DateDiff("n", Date, Now) \ intSlotLength) + 1
'get the position of next *free* in the free busy string
intFreeSlot = InStr(intCurrentSlot, strFreeBusy, "0")
'get the number of minutes into the day for my free slot
dblFreeSlot = (intFreeSlot - 1) * intSlotLength
'get an actual date/time
dtmFreeSlot = DateAdd("n", dblFreeSlot, Date)
GetNextFreeTime = dtmFreeSlot
End Function
To use the function, you need to supply the alias of the recipient. You can also supply a resolvable e-mail address or display name. The following line of sample code shows how to display the next free time period in a message box for the current user (where objOutlookNameSpace is a valid Outlook NameSpace object).
MsgBox GetNextFreeTime(objOutlookNameSpace.CurrentUser.Address)
REFERENCES
For additional information about available resources and answersto commonly asked questions about Microsoft Outlook solutions, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
287530 OL2002: Questions About Custom Forms and Outlook Solutions
Additional query words: OfficeKBHowTo OutSol OutSol2002
Keywords: kbhowto KB294461
