Change "Send Status Report" Form

Question

Hello!

We're trying to implement a form that we've created for Outlook (based on a Message form) that employees fill in various fields and then send it off. I'd like this form to be the one that's presented when someone clicks "Send Status Report" on a task, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi Cody,

There isn't a direct way to do what you want. When you click "Send Status Report" on a Task item Outlook generates a standard mail message item (with a MessageClass value of "IPM.Note") and then populates some task status information in the body of the mail item.

While it is possible to replace a default form with a custom form the problem here is that "Send Status Report" generates a standard mail form and if you replace the default mail form the change will apply to all mail messages you create, not just mail messages created via "Send Status Report". I assume this is not your goal.

If you have some programming experience there are programmatic options available.  One approach is to create a COM Add-In for Outlook that traps the "Send Status Report" button (or adds your own custom button) and then programmatically generates the report message that you want.

This How Do I: Use Outlook to Create a Custom Task Report? video on MSDN demonstrates the basic steps required to programmatically generate a custom task report from a COM Add-In. In the example, the CreateItem() method is being used to create a standard mail message and then a custom HTML body is added.  Instead of using CreateItem() you could use the Items.Add(MessageClass) method to create an instance of your custom form. MessageClass would be the MessageClass of the custom form you created and would look similar to "IPM.Note.MyCustomForm".

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Regards,
Walter
Microsoft Online Community Support