Saving and Publishing Outlook Forms

Forms Libraries

Users will also see a Standard or Application Forms library. This is the built-in library of Outlook forms. You cannot publish custom forms to it. 

Message forms must be published to the Organizational Forms or Personal Forms library, not to a folder library.  Forms for use with items in a folder are usually published to the folder. See:

• OL2002 How to Determine Where to Publish a Form

If you create a form, publish it to the Personal Forms library, and then later make modifications and publish it to the Organization Forms library, you still have the copy in the Personal Forms library. Outlook always looks in Personal Forms first, so it will find the old copy, rather than the newer one in Organization Forms. You need to use the Forms Manager to remove the old copy from the Personal Forms library. To get to the Forms Manager in Outlook 97, choose Tools | Options | Manage Forms | Manage Forms. In Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 Corporate/Workgroup mode, use Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options | Custom Forms | Manage Forms. Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 in Internet Mail Only mode do not support the Forms Manager.

Creating an Organization Forms Library

In Exchange 4.x and 5.x, you find the Organization Forms library in the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program under Folders/System Folders/EFORMS REGISTRY. Use Tools | Forms Administrator to add a library or to expand the list of available forms to include forms in different languages. Outlook automatically checks the language version of an Outlook client and tries to use a form from that language Organization Forms library. 

For Exchange 2000 and 2003, see XADM How to Create Organizational Forms Library in Exchange. To change permissions on the Exchange 2000 Organization Forms library, in the Exchange System Manager program, under Folders, right-click Public Folders, and choose Show System Folders. You should then be able to bring up the properties for the EFORMS REGISTRY\Organization Forms folder and set the Client Permissions on the Permissions tab. To publish a form, you'll need at least the right to create items. Granting Author permission will let key users add new forms and also modify and delete the ones they've added.

You can't publish forms to the Organization Forms library unless the systems administrator grants you permission. You can always publish to the Personal Forms library, which is stored in your Exchange Server mailbox, because the Personal Forms library is yours. 

Publishing forms to a public folder also involves permissions. You must be the owner of a folder to publish forms to that folder.

Also see:

• XADM Organizational Forms Unavailable to Other Servers in Site
• XADM Wrong OFL Deleted in Forms Administrator
• Outlook Tips--Modifying Permissions on the Organization Forms Library
• You receive an error message when you try to synchronize your offline folder file if the Organizational Forms Library on your Exchange computer has been re-created or cannot be located

Running Forms

• In Outlook 97, use the Compose | Choose Form or Compose | Choose Template command.
• In later versions, choose Tools | Forms | Choose Form. The user can choose from both templates and forms in a Choose Form dialog box.
• For forms published in folders, choose the form name from the Actions menu.
• For forms designated the default for a folder, click the New button for the folder

See To launch a custom Outlook form for methods that involve adding a toolbar button or programming code.

One-off Forms

• OL2000- Why Outlook Displays a Security Warning Opening an Item
• OL98- Why Outlook Displays a Security Warning Opening an Item

In Outlook 2000 SP2 and later versions, the users gets no enable/disable macros prompt, and code simply does not run. In Outlook 2002 SP3 and 2003, users may get an error message when a form tries to load an ActiveX control.

If code on a received message or saved item doesn't run or if users see the Enable/Disable Macros prompt for a published form, it means that the form is "one-offed," in other words that the form definition is now saved with the item, rather than the item using a published form. Other symptoms for one-off form items are an increase in the size of the item and loss of the custom icon for the item.

Recommended practice is to set up your form so that it will notify users of any one-off situation:

• Use a label control on a custom page to display warning text such as, "This form is not fully functional. You must first publish it using the Tools | Forms | Publish Form command. If you have already published it, contact xxx@domain.dom for additional instructions."
• Hide each page of the form except the custom page with the warning text.
• Include script in the form's Item_Open event handler to show all of the actual working pages and hide the warning page using the Inspector.ShowFormPage and .HideFormPage methods.

Checking the Send form definition with item box on the (Properties) page of the form will definitely produce a one-off item. Other causes of one-off form items usually are related to changing the form design in code. See: 

• OL2002 Working with Form Definitions and One-Off Forms
• OL2000: Some Control Properties Create One-Off Forms
• OL2000- Working with Form Definitions and One-Off Forms
• OL2000- Published Form with Find Method Displays Macro Warning
• OL2000- ShowFormPage, HideFormPage No Longer Create One-Off Items
• OL2000 Custom Form Converts to a One-Off Form When You Change the Message Options
• OL98- Working with Form Definitions and One-Off Forms
• OL98- Macro Virus Warning When Changing Message Options of Outlook Custom Form
• OL98- Published Form with Find Method Displays Macro Warning
• OL97- Working with Form Definitions and One-Off Forms
• OL97- ShowFormPage-HideFormPage Changes Form's Message Class
• OL97- Outlook Mail Message Larger Than Expected

In Outlook 2002 or 2003, if you forward a custom message form whose Forward action is set to the IPM.Note form, the resulting item will include the form definition of the custom form, but will be one-offed. The problem does not seem to affect earlier versions. The solution is to edit the Forward action on the (Actions) tab to point to the custom message form instead of IPM.Note.

Office 2000 Service Pack 2 fixes several one-off form problems, but also includes the Outlook E-mail Security Update.

To clean up existing one-off items, use CDO 1.21 to remove MAPI property tags that are apparently responsible for the one-off behavior, as shown in the CleanUpItems sample, and set the Type property (CDO's equivalent of MessageClass in the OOM) to your published custom form.

Notes

Custom forms are stored as hidden messages in the folder (for forms published to a folder) or at the top level of the user's mailbox or Personal Folders file (for forms published to the Personal Forms library).  You can see them and delete them with Outlook Spy.

Outlook 2002 can display a maximum of 19 forms on a folder's Actions menu.

More Information

• Designing Microsoft Outlook Forms
• How the Microsoft Outlook forms cache works
• To change a default Outlook form
• Publishing form form one Folder to another -- Delphi sample code using Extended MAPI