Sending Appointment through .NET

I had to create a Appointment by parsing through the database and then sending a particular guy a appointment which would remind him about the appointment approx 15 mins before the scheduled time. The same way in which Outlook Appointment functions.

Searching a bit, I found a way to utilise the Outlook Object library and send appointments by creating appointment objects and sending them.

Was damn happy with the outcome till I ran the program and then I saw the dreaded Prompt.
Due to a security protocol of MS ( Security patch ),everytime a code tried to create a instance of the Outlook object library and use it to send a mail, appoinment etc. it prompts the user with a dialog box asking him whether to allow access or to reject access to the program trying to use outlook object.

Now, since I was writing the code as a part of Windows Service there was no question of the prompt and letting the user click on the buttons every time code would send a appointment. Hence searching a bit on the outlooks Way of Forwarding Appoinments in ICalendar format and also the great Google
Found out a way of creating a ICalendar format Appointment and sending it accorss to the attendee.

Here is a way in which you can send appointments via ICalendar format through code and not using the Outlook Object library (This is a very basic version of the way and does not involve much exception handling,and doesnt take care of nth case , explore a bit on that front )

• The Appointment method
• The Appointment article (Explains a bit of the method code)

posted Thursday, February 24, 2005 12:40 AM by Shaunakp with 2 Comments

SendAppointment Method ASP.NET ,ICalendar format

/// Sends a appointment in a ICalendar format. /// Date of the meeting. /// Start time of the meeting. /// End time of the meeting. /// Subject of the Meeting. /// Name of the attendees for the meeting. /// Email addresses of the attendess,seperated by ;. /// Email address of the organizer. /// Path of the current working directory. /// bool indicating the status of the method call. /// Need to give the current working directory path as the meeting request is /// stored in the current directory before attaching it to the mail. /// Will be adding more customisations in the parameters. and a class to encapsulate the parameter passing. /// meetingRequest.CreateMeeting(“12/3/2004″, ///“12:30:00 PM”, ///“12:50:00 PM”, ///“Discuss demo issues”, ///“we need to have this meeting to discuss certain issues related to demo.”, ///“Conference room 1st floor”, ///shounak pandit, ///shounakp@XYZ.com, ///shounak.pandit@ABC.com, ///“c:\\prj\\temp”); currently requires the filepath to store the ICalendar file in. //// public bool SendAppoinment(string startDate, string startTime, string endTime, string subject, string summary, string location, string attendeeName, string attendeeEmail, string organizerEmail, string filePath) { const string c_strTimeFormat = “yyyyMMdd\\THHmmss\\Z”; string strStartTime=”"; string strEndTime=”"; string strTimeStamp=”"; string strTempStartTime =”"; string strTempEndTime = “”; string vCalendarFile = “”; // VCalendar Format. const string VCAL_FILE = “BEGIN:VCALENDAR\n” + “VERSION:1.0\n” + “BEGIN:VEVENT\n” + “DTSTART{0}\n” + “DTEND{1}\n” + “LOCATION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:{2}\n” + “DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:{3}\n” + “SUMMARY;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:{4}\n” + “TRIGGER:-PT15M\n” + “PRIORITY:3\n” + “END:VEVENT\n” + “END:VCALENDAR” ; try { DateTime dtmStartDate = DateTime.Parse(startDate.ToString()); DateTime dtmStartTime = DateTime.Parse(startDate + ” ” + startTime.ToString()); DateTime dtmEndTime = DateTime.Parse(startDate + ” ” + endTime.ToString()); strTempStartTime = string.Format(“{0} {1}”, dtmStartDate.ToShortDateString(),dtmStartTime.ToLongTimeString()); strTempEndTime = string.Format(“{0} {1}”, dtmStartDate.ToShortDateString(),dtmEndTime.ToLongTimeString()); strTimeStamp = (DateTime.Parse(strTempStartTime)).ToUniversalTime().ToString(c_strTimeFormat); strStartTime = string.Format(“:{0}”, strTimeStamp); strEndTime = string.Format(“:{0}”, (DateTime.Parse(strTempEndTime)).ToUniversalTime().ToString(c_strTimeFormat)); vCalendarFile = String.Format(VCAL_FILE, strStartTime, strEndTime, location, summary, subject , strTimeStamp, attendeeEmail.Trim() , “shaunak”, attendeeName.Trim(), attendeeEmail.Trim(), organizerEmail.Trim()); filePath += “\\” + subject+ “.ics”; TextWriter tw = new StreamWriter(filePath); // write a line of text to the file tw.WriteLine(vCalendarFile.ToString()); // close the stream tw.Close(); // Create object for sending mails MailMessage mail = new MailMessage(); mail.To = attendeeEmail.Trim(); mail.From = organizerEmail.Trim(); mail.Subject = “You have got a Appointment.”; // create the attachment MailAttachment attachment = new MailAttachment(filePath, MailEncoding.UUEncode); // Attach mail.Attachments.Add( attachment ); SmtpMail.SmtpServer = _smtpServer; SmtpMail.Send( mail ); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new Exception(ex.Message + “for email address : ” + attendeeEmail.Trim() + “;” ,ex.InnerException); } return true; } )

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