DAO, ADO, ADODB, OLE, Member FDIC...

[Montez659]

Having worked pretty much within the confines of Access on both the front end and back end for my entire existence, I am thoroughly confused now that I am trying to integrate Outlook and Access together.

I am just looking for a good tutorial/explanation/video of the different types of connections, what reference libraries need to be loaded, how late-binding is done if possible, and some good examples so I can work through and understand the stuff. I think part of the problem is that I am not 100% what to search for so I am sifting through so much garbage.

Anyways, all help is appreciated.

Outlook 2007, Access 2007, Win 7

 

[Norie]

Are you looking to use something like ADO to access items in Outlook?

 

[Montez659]

Sorry, I wasn't clearer. I am actually programming in Outlook to access Access from Outlook.

 

[xenou]

I use ADO primarily when accessing Access databases from other applications, and DAO when programming natively in Access. ADO is pretty reliable and easy to use once you get the hang of it.

A useful reference is at w3schools:
http://www.w3schools.com/ado/default.asp

Good examples at:
http://www.datawright.com.au/excel_resources/excel_access_and_ado.htm
http://www.erlandsendata.no/english/index.php?t=envbadac

I very much like the ado chapter in the Excel 20-- VBA Programmer's Reference series by Wrox - even though it's in an Excel book the chapter is very well organized.

The main thing about ADO is that it has only a few top level objects but they all are quite flexible. You generally open a connection with a connection object, then work with your data with a recordset or command object. Then close any recordsets you have opened, and close the connection.

 

[Norie]

Montez

I'm confused.

Automating/accessing Access from Outlook is the same as from Excel, Word etc.

Am I missing something?

 

[boblarson]

I use DAO for all Microsoft Office code. It is just as easy as ADO. For code to Access from any other Office program, DAO is quick and easy as well and it is native to Access.

 

[Montez659]

Thanks for all the resources all, I will definitely dig into them.

Norie, you didn't miss anything - you are right on. It is the same from Excel, Word, Outlook to Access...I've just never done any of them!

 

[SydneyGeek]

Another worthwhile resource: Helen Feddema has published a lot of stuff on Office Automation. The two main resource pages on her site are Access Archon and Code Samples -- the latter is broken into sections like Outlook >>> Access, Access >>> Word, and several others.

And for discussions on early / late binding look at Ken Puls' site.

Denis

 

[Montez659]

Ok, I must be missing a reference library, but I cannot for the life of me figure out which one. I wasn't able to find it on any of the sites that were listed above. It's almost as if it is common knowledge so no one ever writes it down...

Anyways, I have the following as my connection:

Set cn = New ADODB.Connection
cn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\OutlookNotesDB.accdb;Persist Security Info=False"

But I keep getting an error: User defined type not defined on this

Set cn = New ADODB.Connection

with the New ADODB.Connection highlighted.

So what reference library should I have checked that I have done yet?

 

[Montez659]

Ok, apparently my ADO library wasn't referenced.