Emailing event reminders in Outlook

I tend to use [event] reminders in Outlook a lot, as I’m sure lots of us do. However the downside is I end up with a mix of important (meetings) and not-so-important (defrag hard drive) reminders.

There’s a few tools for sending an email reminder as well as having the reminders window pop-up, but they’re mostly paid ones. It can’t be that difficult? And indeed it isn’t :)

Installation

All that’s required is a simple macro:

1. Firstly enable the Developer Tab in Outlook
2. Select Macros, then Macros again
3. Click the Edit button
4. Double click on ThisOutlookSession
5. Copy and paste the code below into the code window
6. Make any required changes to the constants at the top (i.e. your e-mail address)
7. Restart Outlook for the changes to take effect

The Code

Public WithEvents objReminders As Outlook.Reminders
Const EMAIL_TO = "[email protected]"
Const SEND_WHEN_IMPORTANT = True
Const SEND_WHEN_INVITES = True

Private Sub Application_StartUp()
    Set objReminders = Application.Reminders
End Sub

Private Sub objReminders_ReminderFire(ByVal ReminderObject As Reminder)
    Dim sendMsg As Boolean
    Dim app As AppointmentItem
    
    sendMsg = False
    If SEND_WHEN_IMPORTANT And ReminderObject.Item.Importance >= olImportanceHigh Then
        sendMsg = True
    End If
    If SEND_WHEN_INVITES And ReminderObject.Item.Recipients.Count > 1 Then
        '' Note there''s always at least one person, i.e. YOU!
        sendMsg = True
    End If
    
    If sendMsg Then
        Dim body As String, subject As String
        
        subject = ReminderObject.Caption & " at " & ReminderObject.Item.Start
        body = "You have a meeting at " & ReminderObject.Item.Start
        
        EmailReminder EMAIL_TO, subject, body
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub EmailReminder(toEmail As String, subject As String, body As String)
    Dim oMail As Outlook.mailItem
    Set oMail = Application.CreateItem(olMailItem)
    oMail.subject = subject
    oMail.body = body
    oMail.Recipients.Add (toEmail)
    oMail.Send
End Sub

Usage

When Outlook fires the reminder for an event in your calendar you will now get an e-mail sent too (which I for one tend to notice more).

It won’t send you an e-mail everytime though, only when:

• The event in your calendar has at least 2 people (there’s always 1 in them … you!). I’ve used this to flag this event as a meeting.
• The event in your calendar it’s flagged as Important. This is so you can add a normal reminder to do something, but you get an e-mail reminder as well.

One last thing to note is that you will get an e-mail everytime the event reminder is fired. So each time you Snooze you’ll get another email (when the event wakes up again).

Posted in : techie-stuff, tips