To require confirmation when sending to an Exchange distribution list

This Outlook VBA code demonstrates how to use the ItemSend event to examine a message as it is sent and determine whether any of the recipients is an Exchange Server mailing list. If so, the user is asked to confirm the message. If the user declines, the transmission is cancelled.

In order to avoid Outlook security prompts, it uses the Redemption library. This code should be placed in the ThisOutlookSession module in Outlook VBA. Either the project must be signed or the macro security level set to Low or Medium.

Code Sample

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, _ Cancel As Boolean) Dim objSafeMail As Redemption.SafeMailItem Dim objSafeRecip As Redemption.SafeRecipient Const PR_DISPLAY_TYPE = &H39000003 Const PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_DISTLIST = 1 Dim strPrompt As String Dim lngRes As Long If Item.Class = olMail Then Item.Save ' must save for Redemption Set objSafeMail = CreateObject("Redemption.SafeMailItem") objSafeMail.Item = Item For Each objSafeRecip In objSafeMail.Recipients If objSafeRecip.Fields(PR_DISPLAY_TYPE) = _ PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_DISTLIST Then strPrompt = "Do you really want to send this message to " & _ "the " & objSafeRecip.Name & " distribution list." lngRes = MsgBox(strPrompt, _ vbYesNo + vbDefaultButton2 + vbQuestion, _ "Send to Distribution List?") If lngRes = vbNo then Cancel = True End If End If Next End If End Sub

Notes

Note that before the code can access the outgoing message with Redemption, the message must be saved.

Is it possible to do the same thing, but for an Outlook distribution list, not an Exchange DL? No, because Outlook automatically expands the DL when you send the item. By the time it gets to the ItemSend event, there's no trace in the message that it was ever addressed to an Outlook DL. Instead, however, you could check the number of recipients (objSafeMail.Recipients.Count) and cancel the send if it's too large.

This code is intended for individual use. If you wanted to implement this functionality throughout an organization, you'd want to build it into a COM add-in.

More Information

More samples for the Application.ItemSend event:


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