Exchange web services (EWS): Send "meeting invitations" for meetings stored in a public folder calendar

5
votes

It's been discussed already here on stackoverflow ( Appointment.Save and Appointment.Update always set IsMeeting to true ) that EWS has limitations on how meeting invitations can't be sent automatically when creating new calendar items / meetings inside a public folder.

Since I really need to send the meeting to the calendars of the various attendees I was wondering if anybody has ever discovered a workaround for this strange behavior (I can't even find a way to send meeting invitations programmatically).

The only thing that seems to be working is to forward the calendar item to the address of the attendees, but that's really not an option since it only makes the meeting available as an attachment in the email.

1
phpexchangewebservicesphp-ews
if you use the method in the link you provided and use SendInvitationsMode.SendToAllAndSaveCopy instead, it should send out the invitation and save it as a meeting – JBP
I'm trying to find a workaround for that since when i use SendToAllAndSaveCopy the answer from exchange is : Meeting invitations or cancellations cannot be sent for calendar items residing in public folders. – nowhere
oh. i totally misread the question then. sorry about that. i have been looking around, and it seems public folders are not allowed to send invitations, you need to have a sender that is not public to be able to get this to work. the best explanation i could find was here – JBP
Thanks, but can you give me a brief description. I'm not a paying subscriber on that site :( – nowhere
me neither, but for some reason i can get in through google 4th link. "The reason it shouldn't work is because public folders don't publish free/busy information. You cannot invite a public folder to a meeting nor can you see if a public folder is available." – JBP

1 Answers

2
votes

on msdn they have a sample that create and sends the invite

msdn link

but this will not work for public folders:

"The reason it shouldn't work is because public folders don't publish free/busy information. You cannot invite a public folder to a meeting nor can you see if a public folder is available."