Outlook : Prepend time to appointment subject

Question

1. I want the title / subject of every appointment to be prepended with the its time.
2. I want the title to automatically be updated to correspond to the event's time (If I change the date, so does the title's date).

Example:

10:00-12:00 Meeting with Joe

1. Trying to find a built-in method proved no success. Nothing in the options, settings, rules, I pretty much scouraged the whole interface.
2. A macro is probably the way to go. My VB is non-existent, though I wouldn't be afraid to learn if some one would post some directing links.
3. I haven't found any "post" appointment saving event for the calendar through google searching. Is there one I could use to activate a macro afterwards?

Is this even possible??

Answer 1

The following snippet does the job well, wrote it in about 3-4 hours, and was quite a pain to write ;)

Any comments on how to make the code more succinct and better structured are very welcomed.

I left commentes on the parts I thought were a bit unclear for future comers. If you read this and don't understand anything, leave a comment! :)

Dim WithEvents curCal As Items ' set var as the holder of Item events
Public lastSavedAppointmentStart As Date ' variable so we won't infinitely loop when saving Items
Public lastSavedAppointmentEnd As Date
Public justSaved As Boolean

' Some initial Startup Code from slipstick.com
' F5 while the cursor is in this sub (in the vba editor)
' will reload the so called "project"
Private Sub Application_Startup()
   Dim NS As Outlook.NameSpace
   Set NS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
   Set curCal = NS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderCalendar).Items
   Set NS = Nothing
   lastSavedAppointmentStart = Now()
   lastSavedAppointmentEnd = Now()

End Sub


Private Sub checkPrependtime(ByVal Item As Object)
    Dim isntLastAppt As Boolean
    isntLastAppt = isntLastSavedAppointment(Item)
    If justSaved = False And isntLastAppt Then
        If Not isTimePrepended(Item) Then
            Call saveLastAppointment(Item)
            Call prependTime(Item)
        Else
            Call removePrependedTime(Item)
        End If
    Else
        justSaved = False
    End If
End Sub

Function isntLastSavedAppointment(ByVal Item As Outlook.AppointmentItem) As Boolean
    isntLastSavedAppointment = lastSavedAppointmentStart <> Item.start Or lastSavedAppointmentEnd <> Item.End
End Function

Private Sub saveLastAppointment(ByVal Item As Outlook.AppointmentItem)
    justSaved = True
    lastSavedAppointmentStart = Item.start
    lastSavedAppointmentEnd = Item.End
End Sub

Private Sub removePrependedTime(ByVal Item As Outlook.AppointmentItem)
    Set lastSavedAppointment = Nothing
    Dim oldSubject As String
    ' Cut out the time part of the subject (e.g. 13:00-15:00 Meeting with Joe)
    ' returns Meeting with Joe
    oldSubject = Mid(Item.Subject, 13, Len(Item.Subject))
    Item.Subject = oldSubject
    Item.Save
End Sub

Private Sub prependTime(ByVal appt As Outlook.AppointmentItem)
    Dim newSubject As String, apptStart As Date, apptEnd As Date
    Set lastSavedAppointment = appt
    newSubject = Format(appt.start, "hh:mm") & "-" & Format(appt.End, "hh:mm") & " " & appt.Subject
    appt.Subject = newSubject
    appt.Save
End Sub

' Check whether the third char is :
' If time is prepended (e.g. Item.subject is something like
' "12:00-13:00 Meeting with joe" Then third char is always :)
Function isTimePrepended(ByVal Item As Outlook.AppointmentItem) As Boolean
    isTimePrepended = InStr(3, Item.Subject, ":")
End Function


' BEGIN event handlers
Private Sub curCal_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
    If TypeOf Item Is Outlook.AppointmentItem Then
        Call prependTime(Item)
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub curCal_ItemChange(ByVal Item As Object)
    If TypeOf Item Is Outlook.AppointmentItem Then
        Call checkPrependtime(Item)
    End If
End Sub

' END event handlers

Answer 2

It is possible, at least in OWA and Outlook 2013, possibly Outlook 2010. We have just started playing around with developing outlook apps in the office recently, so unfortunately I cannot provide any code to get you started.

Give this a read: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn574747%28v=office.15%29