Outlook Appointment

[BigDubb]

We have attempted to create a new Outlook Addin for a Meeting request. For
the most part users are very happy with the new changes but we seem to have
hit an peculiarity when attempting to modify a request or dismiss a reminder.


Instance 1: When attempting to modify an existing appointment that a user
has accepted. When the originator of the request attempts a change an error
message pops up "Changes to the meeting cannot be saved. The meeting has been
updated by another person. Close and reopen the meeting, then make your
updates." I'm a little perplexed as to where this concurrency issue is
happening.

Instance 2: When attempting to send a cancellation notice, the user gets the
same prompt as previous instance.

Instance 3: When attempting to dismiss a reminder the user gets the same
prompt as in instance 1.

These problems don't occur when the add-in isn't installed. Which of course
leads me to believe it's the addin. However. I have some breaks in the code.
i.e. PropertyChanged or FormRegionShowing to see if any of the message data
might be changing.

Unless the form region is specifically opened, no code on the custom region
is ever hit, nor are any costom properties ever saved.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why this might be happening, and how I
might go about resolving this problem. Thanks.

 

[BigDubb]

After some digging around on the intrawebs and some trial and error I believe
I have found a resolution, however, I have yet to determine whether or not
this is a work around or a solution.

I disabled Microsoft VBA for Outlook AddIn Don't know why this works but it
does. Maybe something doesnt play well with VSTO and VBA on AddIns Who
knows? Again, if anyone has any information or can lend some clarifcation on
this it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

I've never had to disable the Outlook VBA to get code in an addin running
correctly. Is there any code in the VBA project that might be addressing the
appointment item or keeping a variable object for that appointment?

It sounds to me like you're keeping an object variable for that meeting
alive and that's what's causing the conflict. Are you releasing any instance
variables of that meeting and then getting the meeting again as a new object
variable? FWIW, I don't see any of those conflict messages when I test what
you say in either VBA code or an addin.

 

[BigDubb]

It's not a VBA project, it's a C# VSTO project.

The previous resolution wasn't a solution.

I think I've narrowed down the culprit...

Here's the scenario:
User A sends meeting request to User B
User B accepts teh meeting request and opens the request to the get the info.
User A attempts to modify the request, after user B has opened the request.
User A gets a message stating that the meeting request cannot be modified
because it has been modified by another user.

I thought I was handling all issues with respect to when a user opens an
email and whether or not I dispay the form.

So on the FormRegionInitializing method of the factory.
{
Outlook.AppointmentItem _apptItem = e.OutlookItem as
Outlook.AppointmentItem;
if (_apptItem == null)
e.Cancel = true;
if (_apptItem.Organizer != null &&
!_apptItem.Organizer.Equals(_apptItem.Session.CurrentUser.Name))
e.Cancel = true;

_apptItem = null;
}

This controls whether or not the form is every even made available to the
user upon opening a meeting/appt.

How can i see what's being held on to/locked etc.

Thanks.

 

[BigDubb]

Ok.... Digging further...

I have uninstalled the plug in and followed the same process described
earlier, and am getting the same results.

So, it can't be the originator's instance of the plug in... It has to be on
the recipients instance...

But the plug in isn't/shouldn't be loading on either end.

Where could this be locking?

 

[BigDubb]

digging yet further....

The appointment is getting locked when a user accepts the appointment and
hasn't restarted outlook.

Why is this? What's going on here.

Why would accepting an appointment lock the appointment?

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Accepting an appointment does not lock it. I can accept appointments all day
long and not exit and restart Outlook and I can still modify the
appointments. Something is locking those items. What I have no idea. See
what other software is running that's integrating Outlook, maybe some
calendar synch type of thing.