Specifying Rule Actions

The Rules object model supports the most commonly used rule actions and conditions. Each Rule object has an Actions property that represents the rule actions for that rule, as well as a Conditions property and an Exceptions property that represent the conditions for that rule. This topic describes how the Rules object model supports rule actions.

Rule actions for a rule are represented by a RuleActions collection object. A RuleActions object has properties that correspond to each commonly used rule action in a rule. For example, if a rule specifies two actions - moving the message to a specific folder and plays a sound - then the MoveToFolder and PlaySound properties of the rule's RuleActions collection object will return respective rule action objects that are enabled (RuleAction.Enabled is True). Actions that are not specified in a rule will not be enabled in the corresponding RuleAction object (RuleAction.Enabled is False). These rule action objects are represented by either the RuleAction object or customized objects derived from the RuleAction object. In the last example, specifically, the RuleActions.MoveToFolder property will return a MoveOrCopyRuleAction object, and the RuleActions.PlaySound property will return a PlaySoundRuleAction object, both of which are derived from the RuleAction object. The RuleAction object and its derived objects have the ActionType property that will indicate the type of the rule action. For example, MoveOrCopyRuleAction.ActionType will indicate the value olRuleActionMoveToFolder, and PlaySoundRuleAction.ActionType will indicate olRuleActionPlay.

Note that the Rules object model maintains partial parity with the Rules and Alerts Wizard. This means that while you can use the Wizard to create rules that specify any action and condition that you see in the Wizard, you can programmatically create rules that use some but not all of these actions and conditions. An example of an action that the Rules object model supports for rules created by the Wizard but not for those created by the object model is requesting a server reply. You can use the Wizard to create a rule specifying a certain server reply as an action. Using the Rules object model, you can enumerate these kinds of rules in the Rules collection - for each rule in the Rules collection, enumerate its RuleActions collection and look for an enabled rule action for a server reply. In code, this would mean for each rule in the Rules collection, enumerate RuleActions.Item(Index) using the Index from 1 to RuleActions.Count, and look for an enabled action with ActionType equal to olRuleActionServerReply. You can also enable or disable such a rule action in a rule. However, you cannot programmatically create a rule that specifies the olRuleActionServerReply action.

The following table lists all the rule actions supported by the Rules and Alerts Wizard, and whether each rule action is supported when creating a rule using the Rules object model. A rule action that is not supported in rules created by the Rules object model is supported only for programmatic enumeration and enabling or disabling in existing rules created by the Rules and Alerts Wizard. The table also shows whether the rule action applies to rules with the olRuleReceive rule type or olRuleSend rule type, or both.

Action	Constant in olRuleActionType	Supported when creating new rules programmatically?	Apply to olRuleReceive rules?	Apply to olRuleSend rules?
Assign the message to the categories specified in the AssignToCategoryRuleAction.Categories property	olRuleActionAssignToCategory	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cc the message to the recipient list specified in the SendRuleAction.Recipients property	olRuleActionCcMessage	Yes	No	Yes
Clear all categories for the message.	olRuleActionClearCategories	Yes	Yes	Yes
Copy the message to folder specified in the MoveOrCopyRuleAction.Folder property	olRuleActionCopyToFolder	Yes	Yes	Yes
Run a custom action	olRuleActionCustomAction	No	Yes	Yes
Defer the delivery by a specified number of minutes	olRuleActionDefer	No	No	Yes
Delete the message	olRuleActionDelete	Yes	Yes	No
Permanently delete the message	olRuleActionDeletePermanently	Yes	Yes	No
Display a desktop alert	olRuleActionDesktopAlert	Yes	Yes	No
Clear the message flag	olRuleActionFlagClear	No	Yes	No
Flag the message with the color specified	olRuleActionFlagColor	No	Yes	No
Flag the message for action in days specified	olRuleActionFlagForActionInDays	No	Yes	Yes
Forward the message to the recipient list specified in the SendRuleAction.Recipients property	olRuleActionForward	Yes	Yes	No
Forward the message as an attachment to the recipient list specified in the SendRuleAction.Recipients property	olRuleActionForwardAsAttachment	Yes	Yes	No
Mark the message with the specified Importance	olRuleActionImportance	No	Yes	Yes
Mark message as a task for followup using the FlagTo and MarkInterval properties of the MarkAsTaskRuleAction object	olRuleActionMarkAsTask	Yes	Yes	No
Mark as read	olRuleActionMarkRead	No	Yes	No
Move the message to the folder specified in the MoveOrCopyRuleAction.Folder property	olRuleActionMoveToFolder	Yes	Yes	No
Display the message specified in the NewItemAlertRuleAction.Text property	olRuleActionNewItemAlert	Yes	Yes	No
Notify that the message has been delivered	olRuleActionNotifyDelivery	Yes	No	Yes
Notify that the message has been read	olRuleActionNotifyRead	Yes	No	Yes
Play the .wav file specified in the PlaySoundRuleAction.FilePath property	olRuleActionPlaysound	Yes	Yes	No
Print the message to the default printer	olRuleActionPrint	No	Yes	No
Redirect the message to the recipient list specified in the SendRuleAction.Recipients property	olRuleActionRedirect	Yes	Yes	No
Start a script	olRuleActionRunScript	No	Yes	No
Mark the message with the specified sensitivity	olRuleActionSensitivity	No	No	Yes
Have server reply using the specified message	olRuleActionServerReply	No	Yes	No
Start an .exe	olRuleActionStartApplication	No	Yes	No
Stop processing more rules	olRuleActionStop	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reply using the specified template (.oft) file	olRuleActionTemplate	No	Yes	No
Unrecognized rule action	olRuleActionUnknown	No	Yes	No