How to: Share Free/Busy Schedule Within a Specified Period in a Calendar

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This example obtains the free/busy schedule within a specified week from a calendar and displays the free, busy, and subject details to the user.

Example

This code sample uses the GetCalendarExporter method of the Folder object to obtain a CalendarSharing object for the default Calendar folder for a specific one-week period. It then calls the ForwardAsICal method on the CalendarSharing object and displays the message with an iCalendar payload.

If you use Microsoft Visual Studio to test this code sample, you must first add a reference to the Microsoft Outlook 12.0 Object Library component and specify the Outlook variable when you import the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook namespace. The Imports or using statements must not occur right before the functions in the Code section but must be added before the public Class declaration. The following lines of code show how to do the import and assignment in Visual Basic and in C#:

Imports Outlook = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook

using Outlook = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook;

Private Sub DemoCalendarSharing()
    ' Get instance of CalendarSharing object
    Dim calShare As Outlook.CalendarSharing = _
        Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder( _
        Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar). _
        GetCalendarExporter()
    ' Free busy and subject details
    calShare.CalendarDetail = _
        Outlook.OlCalendarDetail.olFreeBusyAndSubject
    ' Set start and end dates
    calShare.StartDate = DateTime.Today
    calShare.EndDate = calShare.StartDate.AddDays(1)
    ' Call ForwardAsICal method
    Dim mail As Outlook.MailItem = _
        calShare.ForwardAsICal( _
        Outlook.OlCalendarMailFormat.olCalendarMailFormatDailySchedule)
    ' Add recipient
    mail.Recipients.Add("someone@example.com")
    mail.Recipients.ResolveAll()
    ' Set subject
    Dim CalName As String = _
    Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder( _
    Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar).Name
    mail.Subject = _
        Application.Session.CurrentUser.Name & _
        CalName.PadLeft(CalName.Length + 1)
    ' Display calendar sharing item
    mail.Display(False)
End Sub

private void DemoCalendarSharing()
{
    // Get instance of CalendarSharing object
    Outlook.CalendarSharing calShare =
        Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder
        (Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar).
        GetCalendarExporter();
    // Free busy and subject details
    calShare.CalendarDetail =
        Outlook.OlCalendarDetail.olFreeBusyAndSubject;
    // Set start and end dates
    calShare.StartDate = DateTime.Today;
    calShare.EndDate = calShare.StartDate.AddDays(1);
    // Call ForwardAsICal method
    Outlook.MailItem mail =
        calShare.ForwardAsICal(Outlook.OlCalendarMailFormat
        .olCalendarMailFormatDailySchedule);
    // Add recipient
    mail.Recipients.Add("someone@example.com");
    mail.Recipients.ResolveAll();
    // Set subject
    string CalName =
        Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder
    (Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar).Name;
    mail.Subject =
        Application.Session.CurrentUser.Name +
        CalName.PadLeft(CalName.Length + 1);
    // Display calendar sharing item
    mail.Display(false);
}