How To: Create a new Outlook Appointment item

There are three ways of creating a new appointment item in Outlook. Today we will examine each of them in depth.

The first and the simplest way is to create an appointment item using the CreateItem method of the Application class. It accepts the OlItemType enumeration, which informs the above method what item type should be created and returns a newly created Outlook item.

C#:

private void CreateAppointmentUsingCreateItem()
{
    Outlook.AppointmentItem appItem = OutlookApp.CreateItem(
         Outlook.OlItemType.olAppointmentItem) as Outlook.AppointmentItem;
    if (appItem != null)
    {
        appItem.Save();
        appItem.Display(true);
        Marshal.ReleaseComObject(appItem);
    }
}

Private Sub CreateContactUsingCreateItem()
    Dim appItem As Outlook.AppointmentItem = Nothing
    appItem = OutlookApp.CreateItem(Outlook.OlItemType.olAppointmentItem)
    If Not IsNothing(appItem) Then
        appItem.Save()
        appItem.Display(True)
        Marshal.ReleaseComObject(appItem)
    End If
End Sub

The second way is to use the Items collections of the folder (Calendar folder in our case). The Add method accepts the OlItemType enumeration too and returns a newly created Outlook item.

C#:

private void CreateAppointmentUsingItemsAdd()
{
     Outlook.NameSpace ns = null;
     Outlook.MAPIFolder calendarFolder = null;
     Outlook.Items items = null;
     Outlook.AppointmentItem appItem = null;
     try
     {
         ns = OutlookApp.GetNamespace("MAPI");
         calendarFolder = ns.GetDefaultFolder(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar);
         items = calendarFolder.Items;
         appItem = items.Add(Outlook.OlItemType.olAppointmentItem) as Outlook.AppointmentItem;
         appItem.Save();
         appItem.Display(true);
     }
     catch (Exception ex)
     {
         System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
     }
     finally
     {
         if (appItem != null) Marshal.ReleaseComObject(appItem);
         if (items != null) Marshal.ReleaseComObject(items);
         if (calendarFolder != null) Marshal.ReleaseComObject(calendarFolder);
         if (ns != null) Marshal.ReleaseComObject(ns);
     }
}

Private Sub CreateAppointmentUsingItemsAdd()
    Dim ns As Outlook.NameSpace = Nothing
    Dim calendarFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder = Nothing
    Dim items As Outlook.Items = Nothing
    Dim appItem As Outlook.AppointmentItem = Nothing
    Try
        ns = OutlookApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
        calendarFolder = ns.GetDefaultFolder(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar)
        items = calendarFolder.Items
        appItem = items.Add(Outlook.OlItemType.olAppointmentItem)
        appItem.Save()
        appItem.Display(True)
    Catch ex As Exception
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
    Finally
        If Not IsNothing(appItem) Then Marshal.ReleaseComObject(appItem)
        If Not IsNothing(items) Then Marshal.ReleaseComObject(items)
        If Not IsNothing(calendarFolder) Then Marshal.ReleaseComObject(calendarFolder)
        If Not IsNothing(ns) Then Marshal.ReleaseComObject(ns)
    End Try
End Sub

The third way is to use a template for a new Appointment item. The CreateItemFromTemplate method of the Application class does the job. You just need to pass a string (the filepath to a template). The template can be either in the .oft or .msg file formats (I have tested the method for both formats in my Outlook 2010 x64). It returns a newly created Outlook item based on the specified template.

C#:

private void CreateAppointmentUsingCreateItemFromTemplate()
{
    Outlook.AppointmentItem appItem = null;
    try
    {
        appItem = OutlookApp.CreateItemFromTemplate("D:\\Eugene Astafiev.oft")
                  as Outlook.AppointmentItem;
        appItem.Save();
        appItem.Display(true);
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
    }
    finally
    {
        if (appItem != null) Marshal.ReleaseComObject(appItem);
    }
}

Private Sub CreateAppointmenttUsingCreateItemFromTemplate()
    Dim appItem As Outlook.AppointmentItem = Nothing
    Try
        appItem = OutlookApp.CreateItemFromTemplate("D:\\Eugene Astafiev.oft")
        appItem.Save()
        appItem.Display(True)
    Catch ex As Exception
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
    Finally
        If Not IsNothing(appItem) Then Marshal.ReleaseComObject(appItem)
    End Try
End Sub

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