This article was previously published under Q197905
NOTE: These procedures only apply if you have installed Outlook with the
Corporate Workgroup/Other option. This option allows you to use Messaging
Application Programming Interface (MAPI) services. To determine your
installation type, on the Help Menu, click About Microsoft Outlook. In
About Microsoft Outlook, you should see "Corporate" if you have the
Corporate Workgroup installation.
This article describes how you can use the Microsoft Outlook Message
view of a messaging application programming interface (MAPI) folder to
display a Microsoft Excel worksheet's custom properties.
The example below allows you to display a list of Excel worksheets in such
a manner that contents of selected cells are also displayed. For example,
in Outlook, your worksheets may be displayed as follows, where Department
and Total are cell ranges within each worksheet:
From Subject Department Total
---- ------- ---------- -----
John Doe Sales.xls Sales 100,000
Jane Doe Expenses.xls Expenses 500
The example below is a four-part process. First, you create an Excel
worksheet that includes named cell ranges. Second, you define the named
cell ranges as custom properties of the worksheet. Third, you create a MAPI
folder in Outlook and copy the Excel worksheet into the MAPI folder.
Fourth, you create user-defined fields in the MAPI folder that match your
Excel worksheet custom properties.
Click the Testlink shortcut on the Outlook Bar. The Sales.xls
file is now an item in the Testlink MAPI folder. You should see
Sales.xls in the Messages view of the Testlink folder.
Right-click on the on a message header, such as From or Subject. Click
Field Chooser on the shortcut menu.
From the list box at the top of the Field Chooser dialog box, click to
select "User-defined fields in folder."
Drag the Department and Total fields to the column headers of the
current view to create new columns. You should now see the Department
name and the Total fields with the information from the Excel
Worksheet.
In the Messages view, double-click Sales.xls to open it in Excel.
With Sales.xls open, type 50000 in the cell E2.
On the File menu, click Exit, and when prompted to save changes,
click Yes.
The updated value in the Total field of the Outlook messages view
should read "125,000."
For more information about creating name ranges, click Microsoft Excel Help
on the Help menu, type "Name cells in a workbook" in the Office Assistant
or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.
For more information about creating Outlook user-defined fields, type
"creating user-defined fields" in the Office Assistant, click Search, and
then click to view "Create a custom field."