[FAQ's: OD] How do I Publish my Form?

Publishing Custom Forms



Publishing - Save/Store a Form to a MAPI-based store (Outlook Folder) so that it can be used at a later time to view items. You can also Publish a Form to your Personal or Organizational Forms Library.

The three locations you can publish a Form to are:

1. An Outlook Folder (or Folder Forms Library)
2. Personal Forms Library
3. Organizational Forms Library (Exchange Server Environments)

Where to Publish you Form...

Questions to consider when deciding where to publish your Form to are;

• How many people will need access to it?
• Will it be updated often, making it important to only have one copy of the form deployed centrally?
• How will the form be launched?
• Does it need to be available offline?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MSDN

When creating a folder-based solution, where the primary focus of the form is to display the items in a single folder, you should typically publish the form to the folder itself. This way the folder is a self-contained entity and the form is readily available under the Actions menu. However, if you are going to be using the form in more than one personal folder, and each folder will always use the same version of the form, you should consider publishing the form into the Personal Forms Library. This way there is only one copy of the published form and it is generally easier to update if you need to make changes. On the other hand, the down side to this approach is that the form is less accessible since it will not be available under the Actions menu. However, if it is the default form for the folder, as is typically the case, this should not make too much of a difference since you will probably use the first toolbar button to launch new items. The same guidelines hold true for forms in public folders, except you would publish the form to the Organizational Forms Library instead of the Personal Forms Library.

If the form is based on a mail message and is to be used just by you and maybe a couple of people, then it would be best to publish the form to everyone's Personal Forms Library. However, if you are going to be creating new items based on this form, you may want to publish it to your Inbox so that it shows up under the Actions menu of the Inbox. If the form is going to be used by many people within an organization, then it should be published in the Organizational Forms Library so that there is only one copy of the form to maintain and everyone has access to it. Note, however, that this library is located on an Exchange Server which, depending on network and server traffic, can make the form more difficult to launch.

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Publish Form to a Forms Library:

1. With your Form is in Design View, click the Tools menu > Forms > Publish Form As...
2. Select a Library to publish it to from the Look In: dropdown box.
3. Enter in a Display Name for your Form.
4. Enter in a Form name for your Form.
5. Note your message class will be based upon the standard form you used to create your custom form and appended with your Form name.
6. Click the Publish button.

Fig. 1
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