1. Suresh Thoduvail
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. Wednesday, 16 November 2022 21:33 PM UTC

Hi All,

PB Version: PowerBuilder 2021 (Build 1509)/ MS SQL Server 2019.

Outlook version: Outlook 2016

BillingInformation [MailItem.BillingInformation property (Outlook)]: a place holder to store all the File ID's that i want to send one email to.

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Issue: Populating all the file id's into outlook "billinginformation" task item.

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I have a PowerBuilder application that has search by a court date and displays all the files that are appearing in a court on a specific date (displays file number, accused name, charges etc with approximately 1 to 1500 rows).

When the user selects all the records from the search (grid data) window, they are given menu item to send email to all the files highlighted in the search window.

Behind the scene i populate all the File Id's (numeric field) into an array and pass it to the BillingInformation (outlook task item). Another dot net application reads the email sent to the server and finds all the file id's that the email has to be recorded/inserted into the database based on all the files that are associated with the BillingInformation outlook task item.

The issue i am encountering is that, i am not able to populate more than 32 file id's into this BillingInformation column. Once i hit certain number file id's, the rest of the information is not populated to the BillingInformation outlook task item, which in turn does not insert the emails to the files that were not passed on the BillingInformation column in outlook. 

2705494,2770070,2814181,2706405,2723845,2756870,2759432,2770912,2791322,2789763,2792099,2812527,2814280,2750229,2456876,2508184...n (n number based on how many files are selected).

 

Please advise if there is a workaround for this or is there any other outlook item properties that can hold larger values of passed on File ID's.

I have mostly used all the outlook item properties for other purposes, hence the options available for me are limited.

 

Thanks for any help in advance

 

Suresh

Mark Goldsmith Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 17 November 2022 20:53 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 1

Hi Suresh,

As I think you've discovered by the feedback thus far, you are limited to 255 characters in the BillingInformation property for a MailItem. What I would suggest is you take a look at adding a custom property to the UserProperties object and in this case the type of property would be that of text.

I might be mistaken but I don't think it has the same 255 character limit and, even if it did, then you simply add enough additional UserProperties that will allow you to populate the quantity of file numbers in question.

While I have done a lot of integration with various Office products, I have yet to use this specific property/ object and so I don't have code to share at the moment. If I have a chance in the near future I may attempt to do so.

HTH...regards,

Mark

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  1. Suresh Thoduvail
  2. Thursday, 17 November 2022 21:04 PM UTC
Thank you so much Mark, this seems to be promising. I will keep you posted.
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Suresh Thoduvail Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 17 November 2022 15:46 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 2

Thanks all for your help. I agree that this is an Outlook forum question.

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Suresh Thoduvail Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 17 November 2022 15:31 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 3

Thanks much Andreas,

when i check the length of the assigned values it looks like all the values (5218) were assigned to the BillingInformation column (attached screenshot).

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Andreas Mykonios Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 17 November 2022 11:27 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 4

I tried to manual to insert data to billinginformation field from outlook.

The max length of string I was able to type was 255 chars long.

So this is a limitation in Outlook.

Andreas.

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Andreas Mykonios Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 17 November 2022 06:56 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 5

Hi.

I guess that John's answer about length might be critical. You said you can pass 32 first file id's to the specific field. I do see that file id's have an average length of 7 chars. 7 * 32 = 224 + 32 comma = 256. Of course I make some assumptions. But it may be that this field is limited to something like 255 chars length. Unfortunately, like John, I wasn't able to find official details about this field length.

Can you check the length size of contents in the field after value assignment?

Andreas.

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  1. Suresh Thoduvail
  2. Thursday, 17 November 2022 15:27 PM UTC
when i check the length of the assigned values it looks like all the values (5218) were assigned to the BillingInformation column (attached screenshot).
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John Fauss Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 17 November 2022 00:59 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 6

Hi, Suresh -

This appears to be more of an Outlook question than it is a PB question. You might wish to consider asking how to accomplish this task in an Outlook forum, as the question might by seen by a higher number of Outlook-knowledgeable people. I looked at the documentation of the BillingInformation property of a MailItem object, which says the property is simply a string. There is no mention of any length limitations.

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/outlook.mailitem.billinginformation

What I'm about to suggest may not make any difference, but have you considered using a different separator/delimiter character than a comma?

Good luck and best regards, John

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  1. Suresh Thoduvail
  2. Thursday, 17 November 2022 15:32 PM UTC
Thanks much for your feedback John. You are right, if there is a limitation of 255 characters for BillingInformation, the type of delimiter would not make any difference.
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Olan Knight Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Wednesday, 16 November 2022 23:04 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 7

My first thought:  is it possible to use more than one BillingInformation object at a time?

My second thought:  Can you convert the information in the BillingInformation object, or the data that would normally go into such an object, into plain text in the message itself?

Final thought:  Rather than population the BillingInformation object, populate a TEXT file and send it as an attachment.

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  1. Suresh Thoduvail
  2. Thursday, 17 November 2022 00:34 AM UTC
Thanks much Olan, just a feedback:

1. My first thought: -> there is only one BillingInformation object, not possible to add new billing object on one email.

2. My second thought: -> would not be liked by the prosecutors as they want only info they want to communicate (exception being the Files Numbers (not ID's), Crown Office and Charges they have selected.

3. Final thought: -> need to investigate this possibility with the dot net coder (most likely solution for now). Not sure if the crown prosecutors would like to have an ID file attached along with other court documents they are attaching.



Thanks much for your response.

Suresh



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