ms-exchange invitation --> org-mode appointment - Dirk-Jan C. Binnema

From: Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb.bulk@gmail.com>
To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: ms-exchange invitation --> org-mode appointment
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:45:15 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20100718104515.4C21039C72A@djcbsoftware.nl> (raw)

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Hi all,

At work we have the typical MS-Exchange setup for mail and agenda. Only
Outlook as a client is a first-class citizen in this setup, but since there
are many non-Outlook users, mail can also be accessed using IMAP, and
appointments are turned into emails with hyperlinks to access them in
Outlook-WebAccess in a web browser.

Personally, I like to use org-mode for my planning, and I needed to manually
make org-TODO's for the corresponding Outlook events. However, attached find
an attempt at automating this. The idea is that it extracts the information
from the Exchange-emails I get and turn that into an org-TODO, using
org-capture. It's quite trivial, but I've found it useful for me - hopefully
it's useful for others as well.

Note, the code makes the assumption there's a line like:
 "When: 09 July, 2010 10:00-11:00 (GMT+02:00) Helsinki, ..."
I'm not sure what varieties exist in the wild, I'd be happy to update the
regexps. (Maybe there are translations of 'When'? Or am/pm clocks?)

Anyway, it works like this: you select (mark) the parts of the email you want
to add to your org-todo item, and then invoke:
   M-x org-exchange-capture-invitation
after that, 'org-capture' should handle the rest, provided you have something
like 
      ("E" "ExchangeInvite" entry
      (file+headline "todo.org" "Invites")
       "* TODO %c\n")

in your org-capture-templates (something that has 'E' as the key, and takes a
"%c")

Note, this is in the early at-least-it-works-for-me stages, the elisp is a bit
ugly, it requires org-capture etc.; suggestions/improvements are very welcome;
see the notes in the source file. 

Best wishes,
Dirk.

[-- Attachment #2: org-exchange-capture.el --]
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;; org-exchange-capture.el, v0.0.1
;; written by: Dirk-Jan C. Binnema <djcb@djcbsoftware.nl>
;; License: GPLv3+

(require 'org-capture)

;; turn the e-mails sent MS-Exchange about invitation/appointments into org-TODOs
;; using 'org-capture'.

;; The idea is that you select (mark) the parts of the email you want to add to
;; your org-todo item, and then invoke M-x djcb-capture-exchange-invite; 

;; Some caveats:

;;  - obviously, this is just a one-way copy, it won't make you 'accept' an
;;    invitation, nor does it get any updates

;;  - it seems to work with the emails I get from Exchange (I've encountered two
;;    different kinds). But there may be more; at least the ones I get are in
;;    English, there are probably other versions as well. I'd be interested in
;;    extending the regexps with more cases.

;;  - it requires org-capture, which is fairly new; it should be easy to support
;;    org-remember as well though. Also, I only tested with Wanderlust as e-mail
;;    client; it *should* work with others as well though... 

;; Note that that the message buffer must be the active buffer;
;; ie. it won't work in the 'Summary' (Wanderlust)

(defun djcb-exchange-invite-time-to-org-date()
  "try to to find the Time/Date from an Exchange-invitation
e-mail in the current buffer, and convert it into an org-mode
date, or `nil' if it's not found."
  "get the time/date of an Outlook invite in org-mode notation"
  (let ((date) (time-begin) (time-end))
    (save-excursion
      (save-match-data
	(beginning-of-buffer)
	(if (re-search-forward
	      (concat "^When: \\([0-9]+ [a-z]+,? [0-9]\\{4\\}\\) "
		  "\\([0-9]+:[0-9]+\\)-\\([0-9]+:[0-9]+\\)") nil t 1)
	  (progn
	    (setq
	      date (parse-time-string (match-string-no-properties 1))
	      time-begin (match-string-no-properties 2)
	      time-end (match-string-no-properties 3))
	    (format "<%d-%02d-%02d %s--%s>"
	      (elt date 5) (elt date 4) (elt date 3)
	    time-begin time-end))
	  (message "No match")
	  nil)))))

(defun djcb-exchange-invite-subject()
  "get the subject of an MS-Exchange invite e-mail in the current
buffer"
  (save-excursion
    (save-match-data
      (beginning-of-buffer)
      (when (re-search-forward "^Subject: \\(.*\\)" nil t 1)
	(match-string-no-properties 1)))))

(defun org-exchange-capture-invitation ()
  "capture the MS-Exchange invite e-mail in buffer into an
org-mode agenda item using the org-capture system. For this to
work, you'll need to add to your `org-capture-templates' an item
with a shortcut key of 'E', e.g.

     (\"E\" \"ExchangeInvite\" entry
       (file+headline \"todo.org\" \"Meetings\")
       \"* TODO %c\\n\")

any text you select (mark) in the buffer will be added to to
captured TODO; thus you can add the relevant details to the org TODO item.
"
  (interactive)
  (let(	(time (djcb-exchange-invite-time-to-org-date))
	(title (djcb-exchange-invite-subject))
	(txt
	   (if (use-region-p) (buffer-substring-no-properties (region-beginning)
				(region-end)) "")))
    (when time
      (kill-new (concat title " " time "\n\t" txt)) ;; hack: prepend to kill ring
      (org-capture nil "E"))))

(provide 'org-exchange-capture)

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-- 
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema                  Helsinki, Finland
e:djcb@djcbsoftware.nl           w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
pgp: D09C E664 897D 7D39 5047 A178 E96A C7A1 017D DA3C

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