Let Navision Scan Inbox and extract attachment

Frank_Hulsbosch

Hi everybody,

I'm currently looking for a solution for Navision 4.03 to read the Outlook Inbox and to save the attachment to a specified location from where it will be extracted and converted by Navision (since my code to save attachment within Outlook is not functioning anymore after Outlook is closed and restarted).

I've been playing with the 'NS Outlook Synchronization Handler' - scanning the inbox is fairly easy but once I've selected an oInboxItem I cannot set the oAttachments to this item. ](*,)

I seems to me that the creators of this automation have been focussing on sending a mail only...

I hope somebody has the right solution to solve this problem.


Thanks in advance,

Frank

DenSter

I knew I had this somewhere and I can't believe I found it in just a couple of minutes . I wrote (I got most of the code from google :-$ ) this about 10 years ago in VBA to strip attachments from Outlook directly, so that must have been in Office 2000. I don't know if it will still work in your version, but the code might help to give you a direction.

Public Sub StripAttachments()
    Dim objOL As Outlook.Application
    Dim objMsg As Object
    Dim objAttachments As Outlook.Attachments
    Dim objSelection As Outlook.Selection
    Dim i As Long
    Dim lngCount As Long
    Dim strFile As String
    Dim strFolder As String

    On Error Resume Next

    ' Instantiate an Outlook Application object.
    Set objOL = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
    ' Get the collection of selected objects.
    Set objSelection = objOL.ActiveExplorer.Selection

    ' Get the Temp folder.
    strFolder = GetTempDir()
    If strFolder = "" Then
        MsgBox "Could not get Temp folder", vbOKOnly
        GoTo ExitSub
    End If

    ' Check each selected item for attachments.
    ' If attachments exist, save them to the Temp
    ' folder and strip them from the item.
    For Each objMsg In objSelection
        ' This code only strips attachments from mail items.
        If objMsg.Class = olMail Then
            ' Get the Attachments collection of the item.
            Set objAttachments = objMsg.Attachments
            lngCount = objAttachments.Count
            If lngCount > 0 Then
                ' We need to use a count down loop for
                ' removing items from a collection. Otherwise,
                ' the loop counter gets confused and only every
                ' other item is removed.
                For i = lngCount To 1 Step -1
                    ' Save attachment before deleting from item.
                    ' Get the file name.
                    strFile = objAttachments.Item(i).FileName
                    ' Combine with the path to the Temp folder.
                    strFile = strFolder & strFile
                    ' Save the attachment as a file.
                    objAttachments.Item(i).SaveAsFile strFile
                    ' Delete the attachment.
                    objAttachments.Item(i).Delete
                Next i
            End If
            objMsg.Save
        End If
    Next

ExitSub:
    Set objAttachments = Nothing
    Set objMsg = Nothing
    Set objSelection = Nothing
    Set objOL = Nothing
End Sub

Private Function GetTempDir() As String
    Const TemporaryFolder = 2

    Dim fso As Scripting.FileSystemObject
    Dim tFolder As Scripting.Folder

    On Error Resume Next

    ' Instantiate a WSH (Windows Scripting Host)
    ' FileSystemObject.
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    ' Get the Temp folder.
    Set tFolder = fso.GetSpecialFolder(TemporaryFolder)

    If Err Then
        GetTempDir = ""
    Else
        GetTempDir = LCase(tFolder.Path)
        ' Add "\" to the rightmost part of the path to
        ' the Temp folder if necessary.
        If Right$(GetTempDir, 1) <> "\" Then
            GetTempDir = GetTempDir & "\"
        End If
    End If

    Set fso = Nothing
    Set tFolder = Nothing
End Function

You can use most of these objects in C/AL code as well. Good luck, and let us know if you got this to work.

Frank_Hulsbosch

Thank you Denster,

I did already solve this issue by accessing Outlook Automation directly ( :idea: ) , as long as Outlook remains backwards compatible it should work. Basically it is the same solution as your suggestion.


// Variables

Name DataType Subtype Length
autOLAppl Automation 'Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library'.Application
autOLNamespace Automation 'Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library'.NameSpace
autOLItems Automation 'Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library'.Items
autOLMapiFolder Automation 'Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library'.MAPIFolder
autOLMailItem Automation 'Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library'.MailItem
oAttachments Automation 'Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library'.Attachments
oAttachment Automation 'Microsoft Outlook 11.0 Object Library'.Attachment
txtFindCriteria Text 250
intEndOfLoop Integer
i Integer
z Integer
NoOfSavedFiles Integer

// Code


CLEAR(autOLAppl);
CREATE(autOLAppl);
autOLNamespace := autOLAppl.GetNamespace('MAPI');
autOLNamespace.Logon('','',TRUE,FALSE);

autOLMapiFolder := autOLNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(6);
autOLItems := autOLMapiFolder.Items;
txtFindCriteria := '[Sendername] = '<originator of mail>';
autOLItems := autOLMapiFolder.Items.Restrict(txtFindCriteria);

CLEAR(NoOfSavedFiles);

i := 1;
intEndOfLoop := autOLItems.Count;
IF intEndOfLoop > 0 THEN
Window.OPEN('Mail From #1############################################\' +
'Subject #2############################################\' +
'Attachments #3## #4#####################################');

WHILE i <= intEndOfLoop DO BEGIN
autOLMailItem := autOLItems.Item(i);

// Only Process if UnRead yet
IF (autOLMailItem.UnRead = TRUE) THEN BEGIN
oAttachments := autOLMailItem.Attachments;

Window.UPDATE(1, autOLMailItem.SenderName);
Window.UPDATE(2, autOLMailItem.Subject);
Window.UPDATE(3, FORMAT(oAttachments.Count) );

IF oAttachments.Count <> 0 THEN BEGIN
// Run Though Attachments
FOR z := 1 TO oAttachments.Count DO BEGIN
oAttachment := oAttachments.Item(z);
Window.UPDATE(4, oAttachment.FileName);
oAttachment.SaveAsFile('<save 2 location>', oAttachment.FileName);
NoOfSavedFiles += 1;
END;
END;

// Mark As READ (By Navision)
autOLMailItem.UnRead(FALSE);
autOLMailItem.Close(1);
END;

i := i + 1;
END;

CLEAR(autOLMailItem);
CLEAR(autOLAppl);

DenSter

The trick in doing this in C/AL is to use the actual office object model, and not the NAV dll's. For instance I had run into so many problems using the MSMQ busadapter (encoding problems, label problems, queue type problems) that at some point we started using the object model itself. It was a lot of trial and error, but in the end it was very close to the VB samples that we found online.

You can basically use the VBA code as a template for C/AL code, you just have to make sure you handle type conversion, and events are difficult to use. Browse the automation subtypes, you'll be surprised at how much is available there.