Phoning With Outlook from Excel

[Don Wells]

Is it possible to pass a phone number from Excel to Outlook and have Outlook dial the number? I find VBA in Outlook to be inscrutable.

[HansV]

I agree that Outlook VBA is not intuititve, but be glad you're not automating PowerPoint! Compared to PowerPoint VBA, Outlook VBA is a breeze...

However, the Dial method in Outlook VBA only accepts an Outlook contact, not an arbitrary phone number. I tried the SendKeys method to pass a phone number from Excel to the New Call dialog, but SendKeys confirmed its reputation of being flaky - it didn't work.

Try this code from Andy Pope. Insert the following code at the top of a standard module:

Code: Select all

Declare Function tapiRequestMakeCall Lib "tapi32.dll" _
    (ByVal stNumber As String, ByVal stDummy1 As String, _
     ByVal stDummy2 As String, ByVal stDummy3 As String) As Long

Sub DialNumber(Number As String)
     Dim lngStatus As Long
    ' Send the telephone number to the modem.
     lngStatus = tapiRequestMakeCall(Number, "", "", "")
     If lngStatus < 0 Then
         MsgBox "Failed to dial number " & Number, vbExclamation
     End If
 End Sub

You could call it like this in a macro:

Code: Select all

    Call DialNumber(Range("A1").Value)

or in the Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick event procedure of a worksheet:

Code: Select all

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean)
    If Not Intersect(Range("A2:A10"), Target) Is Nothing Then
        Call DialNumber(Target.Value)
        Cancel = True
    End If
End Sub

I don't have a phone modem in my PC, so I couldn't test it, but a connect dialog did appear, so hopefully it will work.

[StuartR]

Hans,

I just tested this code with Excel 2010 on Windows 7 and it worked fine.

[HansV]

Thanks for testing it, Stuart!

[Don Wells]

Thank you Hans
    It works a treat on my 2003 installation.

    I'm too embarrassed to explain why it took me so long to reply. (RTFM)

[Don Wells]

    Having successfully dialed a number, is it possible to close the Phone Dialer using VBA code?

[HansV]

Undoubtedly, but I don't know how to do that, sorry.

[Don Wells]

Thank you Hans.

[BobH]

But, but . . . but . . .

What if you use cable modem? How do you dial from your computer then? :evilgrin

[Don Wells]

Undoubtedly, but I don't know how to do that, sorry.

Perhaps we are becoming too accustomed to Hans having and sharing knowledge that is unfathomably deep to mere mortals.
Again; Hans.

[HansV]

I actually don't know all that much, but I'm good at Googling. In this case, however, I only found very complicated code of which the authors complained that it didn't work consistently, so I didn't bother posting the code or a link to it here...