Using ColdFusion with Exchange
Scott Stroz

Introduction
Who am I?
Senior Software Architect for Alagad.
Web developer for over 7 years.
ColdFusion Developer since ColdFusion 5.
Adobe Community Expert
Author of Flogr
A Flex based tool for viewing ColdFusion log files.
Developing in Flex since version 1.5.

What Will We Cover?
Getting Exchange Set-up to Talk with CF
Connecting to Exchange from CF
Retrieving and Managing Exchange folders and Items
Using <cfexchagefilter>
When might this be useful?

Getting Exchange Set-Up to Talk to CF
The Microsoft Exchange Server and Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) are configured in the Internet Information Server (IIS). This is done on the server that is running Exchange.

Getting Exchange Set-Up to Talk to CF
The Exchange server enables Outlook Web Access to all login users.

Getting Exchange Set-Up to Talk to CF
If you are using HTTPS to log into your Exchange server, you must have a valid client certificate in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) certificate store.

Connecting to Exchange From ColdFusion
You can connect to an Exchange Server using either transient or persistent connections.
Transient - will only exist for the duration of the tag used to interact with the Exchange server.
Can be used when you need to have access to the Exchange server for only one task or tag, such as retrieving a list of tasks.

Connecting to Exchange From ColdFusion
Transient connections can be used by specifying server, username and password inside of cfexchangecontact, cfexchnagetask, cfexchangecalendar
<cfexchangecontact
action="get"
name="myContacts"
server="#request.servername#"
username="#request.user#"
password="#request.password#" />

Connecting to Exchange From ColdFusion
Persistent connections will remain open until they are explicitly closed. These connections enable you to use a single connection for multiple tasks, and save processing overhead from having to reopen connections for each interaction with the Exchange server.

Connecting to Exchange From ColdFusion
You use persistent connections by using the <cfexchangeconnection> tag.
You must specifically close the connection or else CF will throw an error.
<cfexchangeconnection action="open" connection="myExchangeConnection"
server="#serverName#"
username="#username#"
password="#password#" />
<cfexchangeconnection action="close" connection="myExchangeConnection" />

Connecting to Exchange From ColdFusion
You will need the following information to connect to the Exchange server:
The IP address or domain name of the Exchange server
A username of a user with access to Exchange
The user's password
Optionally, a mailbox name to which you will connect

Connecting to Exchange From ColdFusion
By default, ColdFusion will connect to the mailbox used by the user specified in the username attribute. If this user has been delegated access to another user's account, this account may be specified in the mailbox attribute.
<cfexchangecontact action="get"
name="myContacts"
server="mail.mydomain.com"
username="scooter"
password="p@ssw0rd"
mailbox=”skippy” />

Retrieving Folder Info
You can retrieve information about any folders for the mail box you are using.
Folder name
Folder Path
Folder size
Information returned as a ColdFusion query object.
<cfexchangeconnection
action="getSubfolders" connection="myExchangeConnection" name="folderInfo"
recurse="yes">

Retrieving Folder Info
You can retrieve information about specific folders by specifying the folder attribute.
<cfexchangeconnection action="getSubFolders" connection="myExchangeConnection" name="InboxInfo"
recurse="yes"
folder="Inbox">

Retrieving Mail Items
We can list and modify existing mail items, but to send mail, we still need to use <cfmail>
To retrieve mail items, we use the <cfexchangemail> tag.
<cfexchangemail
action="get" connection="myExchangeConnection" name="myMail" >

<cfexchangefilter>
Whenever yo retrieve information from Exchange, you can filter the results using <cfexchangefilter>
<cfexchangefilter
name = "filter type"
value = "filter value">
For dates:
<cfexchangefilter
name = "filter type"
from = "date/time"
to = "date/time">

Mail Attachments
You can retrieve attachments to mail items by using the getAttachments action and passing in the UID of the mail item.
If you don’t specify the attachmentPath, CF will only retreive information about attachments and not the attachments themselves.

Mail Attachments
<cfexchangemail action="getAttachments" uid="#myMail.UID#"
attachmentPath=
"#expandPath("attachments")#"
name="myAttachments" connection="myExchangeConnection" />

Modifying Mail Items
To modify a mail item, we use the set action and pass a ColdFusion structure as the message attribute.
You only include the values you wish to be changed.
We can only change the following values for mail items:
IsRead - yes, no
importance - high, normal, low
Sensitivity -normal, company-confidential, personal, private

Retrieving Tasks
We use the <cfexchangetask> tag with the get action to retrieve one or more task items.
<cfexchangetask
action="get"
connection="myExchangeConnection"
name="myTasks" >
We use the UID attribute to retrieve a specific task.

Modifying Tasks
To update a task we use the modify action and pass in the UID of the task and specify the task attribute.
The task attribute takes a structure of the values that you wish to modify.
<cfset taskProps = structNew() />
<cfset taskProps.percentCompelted = 100 />
<cfexchangetask action="modify" task="#newTaskProps#"
uid="{task UID}" connection="myExchangeConnection" />

Creating Tasks
To create a task, we use the create action and pass in a structure to the task attribute.
<cfscript>
newTask = structNew();
newTask.startDate = dateAdd('d',2,Now());
newTask.dueDate= dateAdd('d',14,Now());
newTask.reminderDate = dateAdd('d',10,Now());
newTask.message = "This is the message for our ColdFusion generated task";
newTask.subject = "Call Adobe about how cool <cfexchange> is.";
newTask.priority = "high";
newTask.status = "In_Progress";
</cfscript>

<cfexchangetask action="create" connection="myExchangeConnection" result="myNewTask" task="#newTask#">

Retrieving Contacts &
Calendar Items
The process and syntax for retrieving, modifying and creating contacts and calendal items are similar to that of tasks.
Retrieving Contacts
<cfexchangecontact action="get"
connection="myExchangeConnection"
name="myContacts" >
Retrieving Calendar Items
<cfexchangecalendar action="get"
connection="myExchangeConnection"
name="myEvents" >

Modifying Contacts &
Calendar Items
Contacts - we use the contact attribute.
The contact attribute is a structure containing the data you wish to modify.
Calendar Items - we use the event attribute.
The event attribute is a structure containing the data you wish to modify.

Creating Contacts &
Calendar Items
Contacts - we use the contact attribute.
The contact attribute is a structure containing the data you wish to modify.
Calendar Items - we use the event attribute.
The event attribute is a structure containing the data you wish to modify.

Recurring Tasks or Events
You can specify if an event or task is recurring.
You have as fine of control over the frequency as you would in Outlook.
To go over all the possible combinations could probably take up a full day session.

Recurring Tasks or Events
ReccurenceType - daily, weekly, monthly, yearly
RecurrenceCount - the number of times event will occur
RecurrenceFrequency - the frequency of the event, in days
Recurrencedays - what days event will occur on (MON, TUE, ect)
RecurrenceWeek - used to specify ‘the second Tuesday of each month’

Recurrence Examples
Every 3 days for 20 occurrences:
IsRecurring="true";
RecurrenceType="DAILY";
RecurrenceCount="20";
RecurrenceFrequency="3";
Third Thursday of every other month
IsRecurring="true";
RecurrenceType="Monthly";
RecurrenceFrequency="3";
RecurrenceWeek="third";
RecurrenceDay="THU";

Questions?

Resources
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/cfexchange.html
http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/cfexchange_1.html