Columns.Add Method

  • Article
Outlook Developer Reference

Adds the Column specified by

Name

to the Columns collection and resets the Table.

Version Information
 Version Added:  Outlook 2007

Syntax

expression.Add(Name)

expression   A variable that represents a Columns object.

Parameters

Name Required/Optional Data Type Description
Name Required String The name of the property that is being added as a column.

Return Value
A Column object that represents the new column.

Remarks

Columns.Add adds the specified Column to the end of the Columns collection for the Table, and resets the Table by moving the current row to just before the first row of the Table. If Columns.Add returns an error, it will not change the current row.

Name

can be an explicit built-in property name, or a property name referenced by namespace. It must be referenced as the name in the English locale. For more information on referencing properties by namespace, see Referencing Properties by Namespace.

If you are adding a property which is an explicit built-in property in the object model, for example, Contact.FirstName, you must specify

Name

as the explicit built-in property name in English. For certain types of properties, the format used when adding these properties as columns affects how their values are expressed in the Table. For more information on property value representation in a Table, see Factors Affecting Property Value Representation in the Table and View Classes.

If you are adding a custom property to a Table, referencing the property by the MAPI string namespace, you will have to explicitly append the type of the property to the end of the property reference. For example, to add the custom property MyCustomProperty, which has the type Unicode string, you will have to explicitly append the type 001f to the reference, resulting in: http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/string/{HHHHHHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHH}/MyCustomProperty/0x0000001f, where {HHHHHHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHHHHHHHHHH} represents the namespace GUID.

Certain properties cannot be added to a Table using Columns.Add, including binary properties, computed properties, and HTML or RTF body content. For more information, see Unsupported Properties in a Table Object or Table Filter.

While Items.SetColumns can be used to facilitate caching certain properties for extremely fast access to those properties of an Items collection, some properties are restricted from SetColumns. Since these restrictions do not apply to Columns.Add, the Table object is a less restrictive alternative than Items.

Example

The following code sample illustrates how to obtain a Table object based on the LastModificationTime of items in the Inbox. It also shows how to remove the default columns of the Table, add specific columns, and print the values of the corresponding properties of these items.

Visual Basic for Applications 
  Sub AddColumns()
    'Declarations
    Dim Filter As String
    Dim oRow As Outlook.Row
    Dim oTable As Outlook.Table
    Dim oFolder As Outlook.Folder

'Get a Folder object for the Inbox
Set oFolder = Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)

'Define Filter to obtain items last modified after May 1, 2005
Filter = "[LastModificationTime] > '5/1/2005'"
'Restrict with Filter
Set oTable = oFolder.GetTable(Filter)

'Remove all columns in the default column set
oTable.Columns.RemoveAll
'Specify desired properties
With oTable.Columns
    .<strong>Add</strong> ("Subject")
    .<strong>Add</strong> ("LastModificationTime")
    'PR_ATTR_HIDDEN referenced by the MAPI proptag namespace
    .<strong>Add</strong> ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x10F4000B")
End With

'Enumerate the table using test for EndOfTable
Do Until (oTable.EndOfTable)
    Set oRow = oTable.GetNextRow()
    Debug.Print (oRow("Subject"))
    Debug.Print (oRow("LastModificationTime"))
    Debug.Print (oRow("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x10F4000B"))
Loop



End Sub

See Also