Access.2007.VBA.Bibl..

F

or a long time — really, since Office 97, when Outlook was introduced

— I have wanted to write VBA code to synchronize Access contacts

with Outlook contacts. My Access contacts are stored in a set of linked

tables, with companies linked to contacts and contacts linked to addresses,

phone numbers, and IDs of various sorts, which allows maximum flexibility

for entering data and at the same time avoids having to enter the same data

in multiple records. Outlook, on the other hand, has a very attractive and

convenient interface for entering contact data, but unfortunately stores all

contact data in a flat-file MAPI database, with a limited number of fields for

addresses, phone numbers, and IDs.

Though it isn’t difficult to write code to simply import data from Outlook to

an Access table, or export data from an Access table to Outlook contacts, if

the Access contacts are a set of linked tables, as they should be, the task is

much more difficult — but not impossible. Live linking is out of the ques-

tion, because of the difference in structure between a folder of Outlook con-

tacts and a set of linked Access tables, but the contacts can be compared, and

data copied from an Outlook contact to an Access contact (or vice versa),

using an intermediary flat-file table filled with data from the linked Access

tables. This chapter describes the technique I use to first denormalize Access

data for comparison with Outlook contacts and then renormalize the

updated data in order to write it back to the linked Access tables.

See the “Working with Outlook Contacts” section in

Chapter 8 for information on exchanging data between a

single Access contacts table and Outlook contacts.

CROSS-REFCROSS-REF

IN THIS CHAPTER

Updating Outlook contacts from

Access, and vice versa

Copying attachments from

Outlook to Access, and

vice versa

Synchronizing Access and

Outlook Contacts