Ms Office Tune Up

If you use Outlook to exchange messages containing confidential data, such as trade secrets, budget plans, payroll details, or proprietary information, the data might be vulnerable to snooping if you leave your desk. You can prevent this by storing the confidential messages in a folder protected by a password, but, unfortunately, Outlook doesn’t give you any way to do this. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to set up a password-protected folder using some VBA code.

In the Visual Basic Editor, double-click ThisOutlookSession to open the module and then add the following global variable to the top of the module:

Private WithEvents myExplorer As Explorer

This enables you to trap events for the Explorer object, which represents the Outlook interface. In particular, you want to trap the BeforeFolderSwitch event. This event fires when the user tries to display a different folder. The idea is that because this event fires before the other folder is displayed, you can use the event handler to ask the user for a password. If the correct password isn’t given, you cancel the folder switch.

To use the myExplorer object, display the ThisOutlookSession module, click Application in the Object list and then click Startup in the Procedure list. In the Application_Startup event handler that VBA adds to the module, add the following statement to set myExplorer to Outlook’s active Explorer object (see Figure 1):

Set myExplorer = Application.ActiveExplorer

Figure 1 In the Visual Basic Editor, add the stub for the Startupevent handler by selecting Application in the Object list and Startup in the Procedure list.

With that done, you can now set up the handler for the BeforeFolderSwitch event. In the ThisOutlookSession module, click myExplorer in the Object list and then click BeforeFolderSwitch in the Procedure list. You can now add the code shown in Listing 1.

Listing 1 An Event Handler That Asks the User for a Password Before Switching to the “Confidential” Folder.

This procedure accepts an argument named NewFolder, which represents the folder to which the user is trying to switch. If this folder’s name is Confidential, the procedure asks the user to enter the password. If the password doesn’t match, the Cancel argument is set to True, which means the folder isn’t displayed.

CAUTION

The code in Listing 1 uses the word password as the folder password. If you use this code on your system, be sure to change the password to a less obvious word or phrase.

You might wonder just how secure this method is if the password displays right in the code. As things stand, it’s not secure because a savvy user knows how to examine the VBA code. Therefore, you need to prevent others from viewing the project. Here are the steps to follow:

1. In the Visual Basic Editor, select Tools, Project Properties, where Project is the name of your VbaProject.OTM project (the default name is Project1).
2. Display the Protection tab, shown in Figure 2.


Figure 2 Use the Protection tab to prevent unauthorized users from viewing your Outlook VBA code.

3. Click to activate the Lock project for viewing check box.
4. Type a password into the Password text box and then type it again in the Confirm password text box.
5. Click OK.

Shut down Outlook, and then restart it to put the password into effect.

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