The code in this article will show you how to build a web page that can:
retrieve information from the Outlook calendars of your team members
show this information in a single neat overview.
The code is written in VB.NET, but it can easily be converted into C# or any other language.
Just copy all the files in the sample code to the root of an existing web site, but take care not to overwrite any existing files.
If a file named "index.aspx" already exists, just copy the file from the sample code after renaming it to something else, e.g. "calendar.aspx".
If a file named "web.config" already exists, don't overwrite it, this will destroy all the existing settings. Just open the existing "web.config" file, and add these 5 lines to the existing "appSettings" settings.
Then, change the value for each of these keys according to your own situation:
The "ServerName" setting is the name of the Exchange server on the network
The "WindowsDomain" setting is the name of the Windows domain controlling the User Database
The user indicated in the key "UserForReadingCalendars" should at least have read permissions on the Outlook calendars. Each user listed in the 5th setting should grant this permission through Outlook's configuration settings. For Outlook 2003, see Share my Outlook calendar.
The "PwdForReadingCalendars" is the password of the user in the key "UserForReadingCalendars"
The last setting "Usernames" is a list of your team members, separated by commas. The names should be the names of their mail boxes (i.e. the logon names). These users should share their calenders to the user that was set in the 3rd setting.
How it works
The first part is to retrieve the calendars from the Exchange server. There are several ways to do this:
ADO (ExOLEDB provider)
CDOEX
WebDAV
I chose the WebDAV method. It has one inconvenience: it's slow when there are lots of calendars to be read.
