Resources integration with Outlook?

HCL Domino Domino Forum
1

I have a client who is currently migrating to Outlook/Exchange.There’s not much I can do about it unfortunately.

So, I am trying to assist during the transition period where I can.

I have exposed the Domino “Resources” database on the intranet so that Outlook users can interrogate room schedules.

We have also distributed a special “Personal Address Book” to all Outlook users containing the names/addresses of each of the room resources.

Sofar, this all works perfectly…

The users can book rooms using Outlook.

An e-mail invitation is delivered to the Resources database in Domino, the room is subsequently reserved, and a reply is delivered back to the originator in Outlook.

This also works if the Outlook user should happen to delete the meeting - The reservation is then removed from the Resources database.

OK, the ONLY thing that I cannot figure out is why RECURRING meetings cannot be booked in the same manner.

I created a test room in my test Outlook PAB, with my Lotus Notes address as the associated e-mail address.

I then created a recurring meeting in my Outlook calendar, and reserved the test room.

In Lotus Notes, I received the proper invitation (containng the correct repeat dates), so I have to assume that Outlook is sending the proper information (I know - Never assume!).

However, when I try the same thing with a valid room resource, only the first meeting is successfully booked/reserved. A reply is still delivered back to the originator, but none of the repeating reservation instances is ever created in Domino.

I’m wondering if anyone here has dealt with a similar situation, or whether this configuration is supported at all?

Any information that might help would be most appreciated.

See y’all at L’sphere!!

Cheers!

T.

2

Subject: Resources integration with Outlook?

Hey Terry,

Did you check the properties of the document sent to the Domino resources database from Outlook? Would be good to compare the values of all fields in the document with a document created with the same dates, times & resource from a Notes client and see what’s different.

Alex

3

Subject: A bit more information from the server’s console…

We noticed the following console entries when the Outlook reservation request is received by the Domino server…

Converting iCalendar stream not generated by Notes.

Product ID:Microsoft CDO for Microsoft Exchange

Directly after that (within a couple of seconds), we always observe an associated entry similar to the following:

08/02/2008 13:33:03 Unable to add note XXXXX to folder in Database D:\Lotus\Domino\Data\resources.nsf: Invalid or nonexistent document

Of course, we can’t debug this issue, since the logic is not represented in any accessible agent anywhere.

Perhaps this may trigger someone else’s recollection of a possible solution?

Cheers,

T.

4

Subject: More information…

We have performed some more investigations, and have come across the following…

We compared the document properties of a repeat meeting reservation that DID work prior to Christmas (yes, this did originally work at some stage), and those of a recent reservation that failed.

The only difference between the two documents was the noticeable omission of the repeat-related fields on the reservation that did not work: OrgRepeat, RepeatInstanceDates, & Repeats.

We also noticed that the “$UpdatedBy” field on the successful repeat reservation was filled with the server’s name. The “$UpdatedBy” field on the failed repeat reservation was blank.

We then though perhaps the iCal stream (the $ICAL_ORIG_STREAM field) was different coming from Exchange for some reason. A comparison of the stream information showed absolutely no significant differences, so we were back to the Domino side.

The ONLY difference we can see between the two instances is that the successful one was processed when the server sat at R6.5.5, and the failed one was processed after we had upgraded our server to 6.5.6FP2.

We have also upgraded the resources database to the most recent template.

Could that be it?

Has anyone experienced this sort of error (I know this is a long shot, given the specific circumstances and Domino version)?

Any help would sure be appreciated!!

Cheers,

T.