Chris Miller is one of the best Domino administrators alive. He regularly writes for the SocialBiz user group and answers difficult questions about Domino administration, like last week's From the SocialBiz Mailbox: Excluding Calendars from Mail-in Databases


You all probably know those unnecessary "errors" the Scheduler writes each time, when it encounters a mail database, where it cannot find the database's owner in the Domino directory anymore.
SchedMgr: Error processing calendar profile document (NoteID: NT....) in database...:
Can't find $BusyName field on profile
SchedMgr: Error processing calendar profile document (NoteID: NT...) in database ...:
Cannot find user in Domino Directory

Perhaps, the user has left the company, doesn't use this mail database anymore or the database simply is a mail-in database.

The Scheduler task is important to validate and update freetime information about current users, but in the above cases, the mail database doesn't include important calendar information anymore. Thus it would be great to just tell the Schedule: "Please, ignore this database".

And Chris knows a solution: There is a small program "NoCal" to do this magic little trick.

But it has some limitations:

• It's really, really old: Release: R5, Platform: Windows 95/98/NT, Date Posted: 04.05.2001
• it has to be run from the command line and
• it just can switch off the "Has Calendar" database option.

I
felt this itching again: Can't I do better than this?

• Something small and transportable like an agent, you can easily put in your mail(-in) database template or any database, you want,
• it should be easy to switch on and off this option and
• it can be run comfortably in the Notes client.

And I did it with
through investigations, lot of tries (and failures) and some C API calls:

The basic agent looks like this:


Sub
Initialize

'/**

'
* gets current database's options, prints "Has Calendar" option,


'
* toggles it and prints new status

'
*

'
* @author Thomas Bahn/assono <tbahn@assono.de>

'
* @version 2014-07-17

'
*/


Dim
session As
NotesSession

Dim
returnCode As
Integer

Dim
hDB As
Long

Dim
retDbOptions As
Long



On
Error
GoTo
miniErrorHandler


Set
session = New
NotesSession



'
open the current database

returnCode = NSFDbOpen(session.CurrentDatabase.FilePath,
hDB)

Call
ShowCAPIErrorIfAnyAndEnd(returnCode, "NSFDbOpen",
hDB)


'
get current options

returnCode = NSFDbGetOptions(hDB,
retDbOptions)

Call
ShowCAPIErrorIfAnyAndEnd(returnCode, "NSFDbGetOptions",
hDB)



'
print current status

If
retDbOptions And
DBOPTION_HAS_CALENDAR Then


Print
"Database has calendar"

Else


Print
"Database doesn't have
calendar"

End
If



'
toggle option

returnCode = NSFDbSetOptions(hDB,
_


retDbOptions
Xor
DBOPTION_HAS_CALENDAR, _


DBOPTION_HAS_CALENDAR)

Call
ShowCAPIErrorIfAnyAndEnd(returnCode, "NSFDbSetOptions",
hDB)



'
get current options

returnCode = NSFDbGetOptions(hDB,
retDbOptions)

Call
ShowCAPIErrorIfAnyAndEnd(returnCode, "NSFDbGetOptions",
hDB)



'
print new status

If
retDbOptions And
DBOPTION_HAS_CALENDAR Then


Print
"Database now has calendar"

Else


Print
"Database now doesn't
have calendar"

End
If



'
close the database

returnCode = NSFDbClose(hDB)

Exit
Sub



miniErrorHandler:

MessageBox
"Error #"
& Err
& " occurred in
line " & Erl
& Chr$(10)
&_


"Error
message: " & Chr$(10)
& Error$,
48,
"Error"



If
hDB <> 0
Then
' if there is a valid handle,
try to close database


returnCode = NSFDbClose(hDB)

End
If

End
Sub

It needs some (Declarations):

' STATUS LNPUBLIC NSFDbOpen(char far *PathName, DBHANDLE far *rethDB);
Declare Function NSFDbOpen Lib "nnotes.dll" (ByVal pathName As LMBCS String, rethDB As Long) As Integer

' WORD LNPUBLIC OSLoadString(HMODULE hModule, STATUS StringCode, char far *retBuffer, WORD BufferLength);
Declare Function OSLoadString Lib "nnotes" Alias "OSLoadString" (ByVal hModule As Long, ByVal stringCode As Integer, ByVal retBuffer As LMBCS String, ByVal bufferLength As Integer) As Integer

' STATUS LNPUBLIC NSFDbGetOptions(DBHANDLE hDB, DWORD far *retDbOptions);
Declare Function NSFDbGetOptions Lib "nnotes.dll" (ByVal hDB As Long, retDbOptions As Long) As Integer

' STATUS LNPUBLIC NSFDbSetOptions(DBHANDLE hDB, DWORD DbOptions, DWORD Mask);
Declare Function NSFDbSetOptions Lib "nnotes.dll" (ByVal hDB As Long, ByVal dbOptions As Long, ByVal mask As Long) As Integer

' STATUS LNPUBLIC NSFDbClose(DBHANDLE hDB);
Declare Function NSFDbClose Lib "nnotes.dll" (ByVal hDB As Long) As Integer

' DBOPTION_HAS_CALENDAR - TRUE if database stores calendar events.
Const DBOPTION_HAS_CALENDAR& = &H00002000

Const NOERROR = 0

Const NULLHANDLE = 0&


And two support functions for the C API error handling:

Sub ShowCAPIErrorIfAnyAndEnd(errorCode As Integer, functionName As String, hDB As Long)
'/**
' * shows user the C API error and aborts execution.
' *
' * @param errorCode return code of the function's execution
' * @param functionName name of the C API function called
' * @param hDB handle to the open database
' *
' * @author Thomas Bahn/assono <tbahn@assono.de>
' * @version 2014-07-17
' */

If errorCode = NOERROR Then Exit Sub ' exit if no error occured

MessageBox _
"An error occurred in C API function '" & functionName & "'" & Chr$(10) &_
"Error code: " & Trim$(Str$(errorCode)) & Chr$(10) & _
"Error message:" & Chr$(10) & GetCAPIErrorMsg(errorCode), _
48, "Error calling C API"

If hDB <> 0 Then ' if there is a valid handle, try to close database
Call NSFDbClose(hDB)
End If
End
End Sub

Function GetCAPIErrorMsg(errorCode As Integer) As String
'/**
' * gets error message for the C API error.
' *
' * @param errorCode return code of the function's execution
' * @return error message for the C API error
' *
' * @author Thomas Bahn/assono <tbahn@assono.de>
' * @version 2014-07-17
' */

Dim length As Integer
Dim buffer As String

' initialize a buffer of adequate length to accept the error string
buffer = String$(256, 0)

' get the API error message from the internal Notes/Domino string tables
length = OSLoadString(NULLHANDLE, errorCode, buffer, Len(buffer))
If length > 0 Then
' remove any trailing characters from the string
GetCAPIErrorMsg = Left$(buffer, InStr(1, buffer, Chr$(0)) - 1)
Else
' couldn?t locate the error message in the string tables
GetCAPIErrorMsg = "Unknown error"
End If
End Function


Just create an agent, which is started manually and has a target of "None".

A small database with the ready-to-copy-agent:

ToggleHasCalendarOption.zip
(52 KB)

The database also contains an extended version of the agent to change this option in another database, which the user the choose first. Then the current status of the 'Has Calendar' option is displayed and the user is asked, if he wants to change it.


Important: As far as I know does this database option not replicate! Thus you probably have to switch it off on all servers.