PHP & Outlook

[tcooper]

I have a php form where I would like to add a dropdown/listbox that would link to a users Outlook Contacts. This form is for internal company use only. All I want to do is show the individuals names that are listed in the contacts so that the user can choose a person. I would like to do this to prevent variations or mis-spelled contacts. Can this be done with php?

[sid]

im not sure how outlook stores contacts and how they can be exported. but php definitely will not be able to access the local contacts (unless there is a way to store tem on a server - which i doubt - or the clients actually are all running php on their workstations and have the address book file within the server scope - i highly doubt that this is what you want to do).

i suppose you should be able to write a parser for the .wab files and have the users upload their specific file, to store the contact info. thats about all i would be able to come up with at the moment.

rock on!

[goldbug]

It could (read at least... not sure about write) be done, theoretically, using PHP and the IMAP functions, and a little bit of coding voodoo and black magic.

Outlook mailboxes can definitely be accessed via IMAP. The contacts however, I'm not so sure of (never tried). But it's a starting point of where to look. 😃

Another possibility: If PHP box is running windows, perhaps there's some Outlook COM object that can be loaded to access the contacts.