[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialname(\"Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook\") |\nout-null\n<\/pre>\nWhen we have loaded the assembly, we can create the enumeration. This was also discussed fairly well yesterday, and is shown here: <\/p>\n
$olFolders = \"Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlDefaultFolders\" -as [type]<\/pre>\nThen we need to create an instance of the Outlook.Application<\/b> object. The Outlook.Aplication<\/b> object is the main object that allows us to work with Office Outlook. To create it, we use the New-Object<\/b> cmdlet and use the comobject<\/b> parameter. We store the returned object in the $outlook<\/b> variable as seen here:<\/p>\n$outlook = new-object -comobject outlook.application<\/pre>\nAfter we have created an instance of the Outlook.Application<\/b> object, we can use the Ge<\/b>t<\/b>NameSpace<\/b> method. There is only one value allowed for the GetNameSpace<\/b> method\u2014MAPI. This line of code will always be the same when working with Office Outlook folders:<\/p>\n$namespace = $outlook.GetNameSpace(\"MAPI\")<\/pre>\nThen we need to connect to one of the default Office Outlook folders. To connect to a particular folder, we use the GetDefaultFolder<\/b> method from the NameSpace<\/b> object. We give it the OlDefaultFolders<\/b> enumeration of olFoldersSentMail<\/b> to refer to the Sent items folder. This is seen here: <\/p>\n$folder = $namespace.getDefaultFolder($olFolders::olFolderSentMail)<\/pre>\nWe now want to obtain a collection of items from the Sent e-mail folder. We obtain this collection of e-mail items by querying the items<\/b> property. This is not a method, even though the word item<\/b> is often used as a method. (Of course, the word is items<\/b> and not item<\/b>, but, hey, you never know. The good thing about Windows PowerShell is we always know if we are using a method or a property, because all method calls use a set of parentheses, and properties do not.) This is seen here: <\/p>\n$items = $folder.items<\/pre>\nWhen we have the collection of items from the Sent e-mail folder, we pipeline the collection to the For<\/b>E<\/b>ach-Object<\/b> cmdlet. We could have stored the collection into a variable, the way we would have needed to do with VBScript. But that would have been much less efficient. <\/p>\n$items | <\/pre>\nWhen we get to the other side of the pipeline character “|”, we send the $items<\/b> to the F<\/b>o<\/b>r<\/b>E<\/b>ach-Object<\/b> cmdlet. This cmdlet acts in a similar fashion as the ForEach<\/b> statement. The big difference is we can use it in the middle of a pipeline to work with individual items as they come across the pipeline: <\/p>\nForeach-Object { <\/pre>\nYou can use the Write-Progress<\/b> cmdlet to provide progress feedback. The Write-Progress<\/b> cmdlet will display a progress bar such as the one seen in the image just below. Use of this cmdlet is a best practice when providing feedback to the user. This is because it automatically tracks the progress across the screen and allows the user to estimate if they have time to go make a pot of Darjeeling tea, which is what I did while running this script (yes, Jit, I still drink Darjeeling).<\/p>\n
![\"Spacer\"](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/hsg\/2009\/january\/hey0127\/hsg-1-27-09-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are three parameters you need to specify when using the Write-Progress<\/b> cmdlet. The first is the activity you are doing. This shows up on the first line. The next is the status message, which is used to let the user know what you are currently working on. The last is the percentcomplete<\/b> parameter. There are other ways of using this cmdlet that are detailed in the online Help, but I find myself using these three parameters at least 99 percent of the time: <\/p>\n Write-Progress -activity \"Inspecting $($items.count) email messages\" -Status \"Processing ...\" `\n-PercentComplete ($i\/$items.count*100)\n<\/pre>\nNext we need to examine each piece of e-mail in the collection. We are only interested in an e-mail message if it was sent within the past week. We use one of our counter variables that we earlier initialized to keep track of the number of e-mail messages we sent this week. Because we are receiving the e-mail via the pipeline, we need to use the $_<\/b> automatic variable to inspect each e-mail message as it comes along the pipeline. The \u2013ge<\/b> is the greater than or equal operator. To increment the $j<\/b> counter variable, we use the ++<\/b> operator, which means to add one to the value of the $j<\/b> variable. This is the same as the a = a+1<\/b> syntax of VBScript fame. The $j<\/b> variable keeps track of all the e-mail messages we found that match our filter. The $i<\/b> variable tracks all the e-mail messages that are processed and is used by the Write-Progress<\/b> cmdlet. This section of the code is seen here: <\/p>\n if($_.ReceivedTime -ge $thisWeek) { $j++}\n$i++\n}\n<\/pre>\nNow we are ready to display the total number of messages. We use a simple expanding string as seen here. The cool thing about expanding strings (double quotation marks) is that the value of the $j<\/b> variable is expanded and allows us to avoid concatenation: <\/p>\n\"Total email sent this week is $j\"<\/pre>\nThe output from the script is seen here: <\/p>\n
![\"Spacer\"](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/hsg\/2009\/january\/hey0127\/hsg-1-27-09-02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Well, PD, that is all for the CountSentEmailForWeek.ps1<\/b> script. If it saves you even 30 minutes a week, that is 26 hours a year. Make sure you include this script in your PHB report. If you use an hourly rate of $50.00 USD per hour, the script saves $1,300.00 USD per year. PHBs love that bottom line stuff, as well as return on investment (ROI)<\/a> using scripts. <\/p>\nI asked the Scripting Wife about her chili recipe. She said she just throws whatever is left in the refrigerator into the pot. Today’s chili had mushrooms, peppers, roast beef, navy beans, pinto beans, tomatoes, and various spices. I\u2019m salivating. See you tomorrow as Office Outlook Week continues. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ed Wilson and Craig Liebendorfer, Scripting Guys<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! The Pointy Headed Boss (PHB) just got back from some kind of stupid management summit, and he has decided he needs to track our work activities more closely. As a result, we now have to give him a weekly progress report. Seems to me that, if he would pay attention, he would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[212,49,3,45],"class_list":["post-54523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-microsoft-outlook","tag-office","tag-scripting-guy","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! The Pointy Headed Boss (PHB) just got back from some kind of stupid management summit, and he has decided he needs to track our work activities more closely. As a result, we now have to give him a weekly progress report. Seems to me that, if he would pay attention, he would […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Hey,](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/q-for-powertip.jpg\" "\\"Hey,")
<\/h2>\n![\"Spacer\"](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/05\/spacer.gif\")
![\"Hey,](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/a-for-powertip.jpg\" "\\"Hey,")
<\/p>\n