rtopken

Calendar Checking Tool - CalCheck.exe

rtopken — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:13:20 GMT

I just finished up a new project I've been working on. It is a MAPI / Outlook / Exchange Calendar Checking Tool.

It is available on Codeplex - https://calcheck.codeplex.com/

This is a command line tool - here is the help for it:

CalCheck version 1.0
Checks Outlook calendars and items, and reports problems.

Usage:
CalCheck [-P ] [-M ] [-S ] [-A]
CalCheck -?

   -P   Profile name (if absent, will prompt for profile)
   -M   Mailbox DN (if specified, only process the mailbox specified)
   -S   Server name (process entire server unless mailbox is specified)
   -A   All calendar items output to CALCHECK.CSV
   -V   Verbose output to the command window
   -?   Print this message

There will always be a resulting CalCheck.log that shows any potential items to
fix or remove, as well as processing information.

Examples
   Default - Prompt for a profile, and process the mailbox in that profile
      CalCheck
   Process all mailboxes on MyServer
      CalCheck -S MyServer
   Process all mailboxes on MyServer, using MyProfile as the logon profile
      CalCheck -P MyProfile -S MyServer
   Process just the mailbox in MyProfile
      CalCheck -P MyProfile
   Process the specified mailbox, using MyProfile as the logon profile
      CalCheck -P MyProfile -M "/o=org/ou=orgunit/cn=Recipients/cn=name"
   Process the specified mailbox which is located on MyServer
      CalCheck -S MyServer -M "/o=org/ou=orgunit/cn=Recipients/cn=name"
   Print this message
      CalCheck -?

It does need another CodePlex tool - MrMAPI.exe to be placed in the same directory with CalCheck.exe. CalCheck uses MrMAPI to parse appointment recurrence data, which CalCheck then uses and outputs to the log file and to the CSV if the CSV option is selected.

The New Outlook 2007 / 2010 Weekly Agenda Print View

rtopken — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:51:02 GMT

There is a new print view that is built into Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 called the "Weekly Agenda Style". This is there by default in Outlook 2010, but for Outlook 2007, you have to first install one of the cumulative updates. There is a bit of confusion around this, so here it is.

For Outlook 2007, you must have SP2 installed, and then the best thing would be to go and find the April 2010 Cumulative Update:

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/982741

…

So, KB 981048 contains code for the new Weekly Agenda Style. This code was actually introduced in the August 2009 Cumulative Update, but is of course still there in this newer update.

But you also need the en-us version of KB 981980 - as it has a resource file (outllibr.dll) that is needed to show the new print style in the UI.

Right then - so you need to download and install both of these packages (Outlook-x-none.msp from 981048 and Outlook-en-us.msp from 981980). After doing so, you can then go to your Calendar folder and you will see the following when doing printing:

The Weekly Agenda Style is a new style that is similar to the Outlook 2003 Weekly Print Style. Here is a sample of what it looks like. First, when you click the Weekly Agenda Style, you can setup some options on the print:

Here is the Print Preview with these options:

The Free/Busy data is shown in front of the items, Categories are coloring the items, word wrapping is built in, and this is the Top to bottom view - which means that the days go down the page instead of across the page. If you choose Left to right in the options, then the days will go across the page.

So again, the two patches need to be installed in order to get this new print style. Here are links to them:

Description of the Office Outlook 2007 hotfix package (outlook-x-none.msp): April 27, 2010

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/981048/

and

Description of the Office Outlook 2007 hotfix package(outlook-en-us.msp, outlook-he-il.msp): April 27, 2010

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/981980/

Outlook 2007 Monthly and Weekly Print View Problem / Fix

rtopken — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 08:26:27 GMT

If you have installed the April 2010 Cumulative Update or later for Outlook 2007, you will notice that word-wrapping has been added to the print views for Monthly and Weekly styles.

That's pretty cool - and has been a lingering and frequently requested change in Outlook 2007. However - there was a problem with this updated print feature, in that is omits the Ending Time on appointments. Quite a few customers have reported this issue, and I'm glad to say that a fix is in the works and is due to be released with the October 2010 Cumulative Update for Outlook 2007.

Additionally - Outlook 2010 should be getting these changes in SP1 when it releases. This will significantly help with customers who have gone to the Calendar Printing Assistant because the Calendar printing in Outlook 2007 left a bit to be desired.

CPAO: Using Colors for Categories and Private Items

rtopken — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:09:35 GMT

It seems that one of the "holy grails" for the Calendar Printing Assistant is to be able to colorize entire appointments with the category colors for those appointments. There is a way to signify the category with CPAO - which is the colored dot that I have used / showed in previous posts. However - since Outlook actually makes the entire appointment the color of the assigned category - people want to see this in CPAO as well.

Well - after editing these templates for a couple years I did find a way that you CAN actually color entire appointments with the category color. However - this is a tedious task, it is difficult to manage, and it is limited in ability. So it can be done - but it may or may not be worth the effort and administrative upkeep.

Also - you can colorize Private Items - and that is a bit easier to do and does not require any upkeep - so I'll show that as well.

So here is a sample of a template I created to demonstrate this:

Yes - this is actually a template I created and it is really showing the color categories without the dots.

Also please note the private item at 5:00 on Monday - it is colored gray.

This template was modified starting with the Work Week 02 Letter template, and I added the necessary code to do the category and private item coloring. I also modified the timescale to include more of the day, and modified the header a bit - as that seems to help get the data in the appointments a little better since the timescale was increased.

So here is the code I added for the colorization:

...

MinorUnit="30" Style="SingleBody"

Background="Transparent">

Background="White">

Background="Red"/>

Background="Blue"/>

Category'" Background="Green"/>

Category'" Background="Orange"/>

Category'" Background="Yellow"/>

Background="Gray"/>

BorderThickness="0,0,1,0">

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarFree"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarTentative"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarOOF"/>

FontSize="8pt" SeparatorFontFamily="Wingdings"

TextWrapping="WrapWithOverflow">

...

So to go through this briefly - I set the background color of the appointments to "White" - which is something I have shown before. So all appointments will have a White background unless the category is different. This is where the conditional statements come in.

These conditional statements will test the Category Name - not the Category Color. If the Category Name matches the Category Name from Outlook, then it will color the background with the color that I choose.

Please note that users can change the Category Name in Outlook - so that is one of the big caveats of doing this. Also - I - as the person editing the template - must know that "X" Category Name matches up to "Y" Category Color. That is so I will put in the right info so that the right color will show for the particular appointment with the particular category name applied to it.

So as long as you can get a mapping of color to Outlook category name - then you can get this working. But the user can never change the name of the category. Or else if they do - then you will have to go back in and update the template accordingly. Same problem if a category is added - it would have to be added to the template and refreshed. Also - if a user assigns 2 or more categories, then this won't work and the appointment will go back to the default color - in this case White.

Now for the Private Items - the code is very similar. There is a test to see if the Sensitivity is set to Private. If so - then the background color is set to Gray. You could set it to any color you like. Since this is more static as far as the test - it is MUCH easier to implement and maintain.

So - yes, it can be done. Depending on the environment where it's deployed, it could work very well. But it could also break a whole lot in other environments.

I attached the Content.xml for this template so you can use or compare with a template you're working on...

Cheers!

Content.xml

CPAO: Editing A Weekly Template

rtopken — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:35:17 GMT

I wanted to put a Weekly CPAO template example up - so here it is. I will start out with the Weekly List 01 Letter Template, and do some modifications to it. I will not cover the entire template - just changes that I make in it to show how it can be modified. For changes to an entire template - you should look at the Monthly Template series posted here previously. That series covers an entire template and what settings in the Content.xml and Metadata.xml are used for each section in that template. Most of what is covered there pertains to any template - Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.

Okay - so here is how the Weekly List 01 template looks in its original form:

Some things to notice on this template are:

They show which mailbox the appointment belongs to using the blue dot.
The category is shown after the appointments along with the category name.
There are lines breaking up each day - but not into any kind of time scale.

There is an All Day Event on Friday - but it is listed just like every other appointment with the times set 12am to 12am.

So on to the modifications.

I want to remove the blue dots, and the extra column that the blue dots are in. They are okay if you are opening more than one user's calendar in Outlook - but even then, you will just see a blue dot for one calendar, and then a red diamond or some other colored symbols for additional calendars. There is not way to print a legend of which calendar is which, so I like to just remove the blue dots.
I want to put the category dot (the color of the category is the color of the dot) both in front and behind the appointment so that the category is more easily seen. I also don't want the category name - that seems extraneous - and takes up room on the page.
I want to remove the lines breaking up each day - as they don't seem to have any functional use.
I also want to differentiate the All Day Events so they can be more easily seen.

Here is the change for modification 1:

Original template (Content.xml):

...

Text="#[@TemplateDate_DayNameDayNumber]"

Style="LevelOneTitle"/>

ShowEmptyRow="true" MaxRowWrap="3" RowSize="16"

TypeFilter="AppointmentsTasksAllDayAppointments"

MinorLineCount="3" Style="SingleBodyBorder">

Style="AccentFill">

RightBorderStroke="style!SingleLineStroke" Left="2"

Top="3" Right="2" Bottom="2" Style="AccentFill">

...

Okay - so the code in RED here defined two columns. The first column is for the Calendar that the appointments belong to - it is specified by "Calendar Icon". The second column is for Tasks, and will show tasks in progress. It also has the right border line. I added a Task so you can see this better:

As long as the task is not completed - it will show in the template like this.

So to get rid of these two columns - we only need to remove the code from the template:

Text="#[@TemplateDate_DayNameDayNumber]"

Style="LevelOneTitle"/>

ShowEmptyRow="true" MaxRowWrap="3" RowSize="16"

TypeFilter="AppointmentsTasksAllDayAppointments"

MinorLineCount="3" Style="SingleBodyBorder">

Right="2" Bottom="2" >

Format="d"/>

EndSeparator=")"/>

...

And now the template looks a little different - the Calendar and Task signifiers are gone:

Alright! Now for mod 2. You can see in the shot above that the category is signified with a colored dot for that category. It is followed by the Category name. I want to change this so the name is gone, and the colored dot is before and after the appointment. Here is that change:

Original:

...

Right="2" Bottom="2" >

Format="d"/>

EndSeparator=")"/>

...

The code in GREEN here describes how things will show. We just need to move some elements around here to get what we want - namely the "CategorySymbols" and the "Categories". So here is the new code:

...

Right="2" Bottom="2" >

Format="d"/>

EndSeparator=")"/>

...

And here is how this looks now:

Okay - modification 3 is to get rid of the lines shown inside each day. This one is pretty easy too. Here's the code:

Original:

...

Text="#[@TemplateDate_DayNameDayNumber]"

Style="LevelOneTitle"/>

ShowEmptyRow="true" MaxRowWrap="3" RowSize="16"

TypeFilter="AppointmentsTasksAllDayAppointments"

MinorLineCount="3" Style="SingleBodyBorder">

...

The "MinorLineCount" attribute is all we need to change here. Since there are 3 lines in each day, you would think intuitively that you would want to set it to "0" instead of "3", but that would be incorrect. Try setting it to "0" to see the effect - it will put many lines in each day. So you actually want to set it to a pretty high number so that CPAO will just not render the lines. I don't know what the threshold is - but I found that setting this to "50" seems to do the trick:

...

Text="#[@TemplateDate_DayNameDayNumber]"

Style="LevelOneTitle"/>

ShowEmptyRow="true" MaxRowWrap="3" RowSize="16"

TypeFilter="AppointmentsTasksAllDayAppointments"

MinorLineCount="50" Style="SingleBodyBorder">

...

Here's how the entire template looks now:

Okay - everything looks how I'm wanting now except for the All Day Events. I want those to be placed at the top of the day in a box so that it is differentiated from regular appointments. A decent amount of code must be added for this - I am merely copying it from another template that has the All Day Events set the way I am wanting.

Original Code:

...

Text="#[@TemplateDate_DayNameDayNumber]"

Style="LevelOneTitle"/>

ShowEmptyRow="true" MaxRowWrap="3" RowSize="16"

TypeFilter="AppointmentsTasksAllDayAppointments"

MinorLineCount="50" Style="SingleBodyBorder">

...

New Code:

...

Style="SingleAppointment">

BorderThickness="0,0,1,0">

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarFree"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarTentative"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarOOF"/>

HorizontalAlignment="Center" Separator="116"

SeparatorFontFamily="WingDings" FontSize="8pt"

TextWrapping="NoWrap">

Text="#[@TemplateDate_DayNameDayNumber]"

Style="LevelOneTitle"/>

ShowEmptyRow="true" MaxRowWrap="3" RowSize="16"

TypeFilter="AppointmentsTasks" MinorLineCount="50"

Style="SingleBodyBorder" >

...

So this change is pretty complex. First I added the All Day Event code under the WeekFormat section.

Then I added a dock panel in the DayFormat section and specified that the AllDay appointments be placed at the top. I changed the List TypeFilter to only show Appointments and Tasks, and NOT All Day Appointments anymore. Then I closed out the dock panel section.

And here is how the final modified template looks:

Notice that the All Day Event for Friday is now enclosed and separated from regular appointments.

So this shows how you can go in and modify a Weekly CPAO template as needed for your requirements.

This particular modification set is similar to that request from a customer who wanted the output to look more like the Outlook 2003 Weekly Print view.

I have attached the modified Content.xml so you can use it yourself and/or compare the changes I made with the original.

Content.xml

CPAO: Editing a Daily Template - Part 2

rtopken — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:48:00 GMT

In the previous section showing a 3x5 daily calendar printout using CPAO, I did not include a timeline. In this final example for a daily template I will show what that looks like:

So the big difference here is the timeline for the day on the left side of the view. The appointments are placed where they occur during the day instead of just being listed in order as in the previous example.

Now - if you have a particularly busy schedule - the previous example with just a listing of appointments may be the best solution. But if you have a schedule where appointments don't overlap a lot, or is not extremely busy most of the time - then this might be a good solution.

Here is the listing of the Content.xml for this template:

This listing is very similar to the previous daily example except for the entries in green and red. I should reiterate here that if you have not gone through the Standard Monthly Legal template series , it will be very good to do so - as it explains a lot more about the settings seen in the CPAO templates, as well as how to edit them and save them.

Okay - that out of the way, the green settings above are for the time scale and for describing what to fill in and where for each time slot.

EndHour="19" MajorFontWeight="Bold"

MinorUnitShow="true" MinorUnit="15"

Style="TimeScale" />

MinorUnit="30" Style="SingleBody">

In the TimeScale section, the start and end hours tell how much of a time scale to use on the paper. For this example the calendar starts at 7am and ends at 7pm. The MinorUnitShow and MinorUnit settings describe what kind of time scale to show. Here it is set to "true" and "15". That means it will show 15 minute increments in the timescale :

The TimeSlot section has similar Start and End hour settings. The MinorUnit setting of "30" will force a 15 minute meeting (or anything shorter than 30 minutes) to show in a 30 minute appointment space. I do this here for the small 3x5 daily template so you can really read the text. Otherwise the text gets cut off on the bottom. Here is a comparison:

MinorUnit="30":

MinorUnit="15":

Okay - the settings in red above are left - and they describe how the appointments will look.

BorderThickness="0,0,1,0">

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarFree"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarTentative"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarOOF"/>

FontSize="6pt" SeparatorFontFamily="Wingdings"

TextWrapping="WrapWithOverflow">

FontWeight="Bold"/>

The Style of "SingleAppointment" means that the appointments will show in a bordered box like the All Day Events (it has the same Style…). The free busy status bar will show on the left just like the All Day Events. If the time is "busy", then no bar will show, and it is assumed that the time is "busy".

You can show a bar here for busy by doing something like the following:

BorderThickness="0,0,1,0">

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarBusy"

Background="Blue"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarFree"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarTentative"/>

Visibility="Visible"

Style="SingleAppointmentBarOOF"/>

The text I added is in green. It checks to se if the time is marked as Busy, and if so then it will do the "Busy" style - which is the default (no bar and it's assumed the time is busy in that case). So I added a different background color and that allows the time to be seen specifically as busy:

So that's a neat trick you can add here or in other templates where you want to see the time marked as busy when it is busy along with the other states for the status.

Okay - for the rest of the appointment data to show, it is very similar to the "List" statement in the previous daily example:

FontSize="6pt" SeparatorFontFamily="Wingdings"

TextWrapping="WrapWithOverflow">

FontWeight="Bold"/>

It will show Category Symbols (dots) on the front and back of the other appointment data. It will show the Subject and Location, and it will also show "odd times" if the times do not align with the TimeSlot MinorUnit setting. In this template it is set to 30, so any appointment not starting or ending on the hour or half hour will have the times for the appointment displayed - like:

Since the above is a 15 minute meeting - it ends at an "odd time" and so the start and end times show on it.

That is it for this template. If there is something you want in your customized template that might not be shown here - you can always expand out a template that has what you are wanting, and incorporate it.

I have attached the Content.xml that has these modifications to this post - I hope it will help with a similar template for you.

Content.xml

In case Calendar Printing Assistant (CPAO) just won't work for you...

rtopken — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:50:25 GMT

My co-worker posted a how-to on a different way to do printing with a Word template. So if CPAO just won't do what you want, then you might be able to use the Word template as a solution that will work for you...

https://blogs.technet.com/b/sbradley/archive/2010/06/24/the-howto-and-sample-template-for-custom-outlook-calendar-templates.aspx

CPAO: Editing a Daily Template - Part 1

rtopken — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 06:52:00 GMT

I have had several customers request a Daily Template that fits data on a 3x5 index card sized printout.

I have done a few different iterations of this layout to customize things for each particular customer - but I wanted to give an example of this since it seems to be a popular request.

Here is the calendar data as seen in Outlook 2007:

Here is what the 3x5 template I have modified/created in Calendar Printing Assistant (CPAO) looks like:

I started with the "Standard Day 03 Letter" (Day_StandardDay03.catx) and modified it to make this new template. I actually really just removed a lot from the original template, made some things smaller, etc. so that items would fit in a 3x5 printout.

You could change the size of the paper to use on the Standard Day 3 template to an Index Card 3x5" - but the printout is difficult to read when it is set to 3x5:

As you can see - the Standard Day 3 template is really designed to be printed out on a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, and not an index card.

I will go through some of the details of what was changed - and I encourage you to also go through the material covered in the series I did on modifying the Monthly template. It covers things that I will not go over again here. In general - I removed all the month thumbnails, set the main header to be smaller and to print out the Day information, removed the "Appointments" header, removed the timeline, and set the appointments to print with the Category (signified with a colored dot), start and end time, subject, and location.

You could leave the timeline in there on the 3x5 template, and I will show a sample of that in a future post.

Here is a listing of the Content.xml for this template:

Moving down through this listing - things I changed are in green. I also removed a bunch of code from the original Standard Day 3 template. It would be a good exercise to expand out that template (Day_StandardDay03.catx) and compare the Content.xml from that template with my modifications here.

Starting from the top - I modified the page to have a bit smaller margins, and made the header size .30in instead of "Auto":

0.30in,0.0in,*,0.30in" ColumnSetting="0.20in,*,0.20in"

Style="StandardText">

Then in the header itself - I set the day and date to display using:

Text="#[@TemplateDate_MonthName]

#[@TemplateDate_DayNumber], #[@TemplateDate_YearNumber]"

Margin="2" FontSize="8pt" Style="AccentText"/>

Text="#[@TemplateDate_DayName]"

FontSize="7pt" HorizontalAlignment="Right"/>

The variables used in red above - like #[@TemplateDate_MonthName] - can be used to display data as needed - like the month name, day number, year number, and day name. I actually went and opened other templates to find some of the variables I used here, so if there is something you are wanting, it might pay to look at other templates to see if one has what you want, then crack open that template and see what variable is used.

In the AllDayAppointments area I set a smaller height for each all day appointment, I set the mininmum size to just over the size of one appointment - and made room for about 6 all day appointments using the MaxSize setting:

MaxSize="92" Padding="2">

Height="14" Margin="5,0,5,1" Style="SingleAppointment">

I also added a colored dot to show the color category using the CategorySymbols source element. So if a category is selected for the all day event - and that shows before and after the appointment:

FontSize="6pt" FontWeight="Bold"/>

FontSize="6pt"/>

In this particular case - a category with a blue color was selected. I also set all the font sizes to be smaller so that the text would fit in the appointment area.

Then for the rest of the appointments I changed out the CompactList for a plain regular List. You can read more about using a List in place of a CompactList and some differences, etc. in a previous post.

In the original template I changed out:

StartHour="8" EndHour="18" TimeWindow="Exclude" TypeFilter="Appointments"

FontSize="8pt" BorderThickness="0,1,0,0"

BorderBrush="style!SingleLineStroke"/>

And put the following in its place:

RowSize="16" TypeFilter="AppointmentsTasks">

Bottom="3" >

This displays the appointments with the categories signified on them with the colored dots. It has the start and end times listed on them since there is no time line, and the subject and location. The "StartSeparator" and "EndSeparator" is used to put - well - separators between these elements, and you just put in the text and/or spaces that you want for these separators.

Please note here that the last appointment does have 2 categories assigned to it - and so both categories are signified with the orange and green dots. It is a private appointment - and CPAO will place the "lock" symbol next to it automatically when it is a private appointment.

Lastly - I also modified the Metadata.xml file for this template. More info on why to do this is in a previous post.

Here is the listing for that file:

Daily 3x5

Day

Index Card

5in

3in

Portrait

DefaultPreview.gif

false

true

false

The changes here will allow this template to show in CPAO as "Daily 3x5 Index Card". And by default the page size will be set to 3x5" when loading the template.

I attached the Content.xml for this modified template so that you can use it / compare it / etc.

Content.xml

CPAO: Entire Notes for Monthly Template in PDF format

rtopken — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:04:00 GMT

After making all these posts on editing CPAO - I can see that it will be nice to have them all together in one paper that can be used for reference. I have uploaded a PDF that has all the CPAO template editing posts in them. Hopefully this will be a help for anyone who needs to edit these templates to fulfill a printing need for Outlook calendars.

CPAO Notes.pdf

CPAO: Listing of the Standard Month Legal Template

rtopken — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:51:03 GMT

Here is the entire listing of the code from the Standard Month Legal template I created.

First - here is the contents of the Metadata.xml file:

Standard Month Legal

Month

Legal

14in

8.5in

Portrait

DefaultPreview.gif

true

false

135

And then here is the listing of the entire Content.xml file:

I have also attached the Content.xml file to this post for your convenience. You can use this to do some comparisons with other templates (like the "Month_StandardMonth01.catx" template it was derived from) , and/or to do some editing of your own :-)

Content.xml