Sending an Outlook 2003/2010 Meeting Request via CF

[sockerdad]

Well, that about sums it up!

OK, a few more details:  my application is sending out emails without any problems, but now the user wants to be able to receive appointment requests to the public calendar that she maintains instead of having to retype the email information that is coming to her inbox.  Her ideal solution is to receive an appointment request to the public calendar which she can accept, tentatively accept, ir decline.

This public calendar (called DMV-ISB) is available to everyone in the department and we can manually add our leave information to it.  However, as humans are inclined to do, no one bothers.  This creates an administrative nughtmare for her and there are days she spends up to four hours coordinating the calendar.

We are currently using Outlook 2003, but expect to migrate to Outlook 2010 by the end of the year, so the solution has to be either robust or easily converted.  I've tried using cfmail with the cfmailparam/cfmailpart tags, but all I get is an email, no appointment request.

Thanks in advance for your time and suggestions.

[Dave Watts]

I've tried using cfmail with the cfmailparam/cfmailpart tags, but all I get is an email, no appointment request.

What have you sent with CFMAIL? You can send iCal/vCal attachments, and those work fine - the user has to double-click the attachment by default.

Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software

[sockerdad]

OK, I spent most of today researching i/vCal and am now using a script to build an .ics file, then send the file to the calendar owner in an email as an attachment. 

As you pointed out, the owner still has to interact with the request (although a lot less interaction than before).  An email appears and the owner has to open the attachment (which is the appointment request, properly formatted!) and then accept the request.

This is frustrating because I have seen other examples where the request arrives without being "cloaked" in an email as an attachment. 

Still researching.....

[Dave Watts]

As you pointed out, the owner still has to interact with the request (although a lot less interaction than before).  An email appears and the owner has to open the attachment (which is the appointment request, properly formatted!) and then accept the request.

This is frustrating because I have seen other examples where the request arrives without being "cloaked" in an email as an attachment.

If you want to do this, find an example email and view the original email message directly.

http://email.about.com/od/outlooktips/qt/How_to_View_the_Complete_Message_Source_in_Outlook.htm?rd=1

Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software