Outlook Custom Forms - An Introduction in VB.NET

We are very familiar with different outlook forms such as message form for emails, calendar form for set the event or appointments, task form contact form etc. we can use various functionalities of these forms in our .net application for example if we want to send an email message form outlook than we can open default outlook message form from our application. but there are some limitation suppose if we want to add some more functionalities on this outlook message forms like we want to add some additional  button and textbox or add some more functionalities (validating email data,communication with database etc ) in this situation we can not use outlook default form so for this we can create custom outlook form.

These are the default outlook forms:

           Mail Message - IPM.Note 
Contact -IPM.Contact 
Appointment -IPM.Appointment 
Task -IPM.Task 
Distribution List - IPM.DistList 
Note - IPM.StickyNote
 Post - IPM.Post 
Journal Entry - IPM.Activity)
  Meeting Request - IPM.Schedule.Meeting.Request 
 

Example for creating custom form:

Step 1:  Goto Tools menu, click Forms and select Design A Form, and then, select a default form to modify from the Standard Forms Library.

 

Step 2:. Select the Message form



Step 3: Form will be open


 

Step 4: click on toolbox and drag some  control  as you wish


 

Now you can see preview of this custom form by click on 'run this form' button.

Step 5: You need to publish the form in the forms library or in the folder where you want to use .If you publish it in a public folder, it will be available for all users who have permission to access the folder. If you publish it in a personal folder, it's for your use only.
 

 

We can create custom form of any outlook item those are listed above. We can use VBScript to further customize your forms, suppose that if you want to show a message on click of your custom button or validating data, you can do by vb Script.