Excel VBA, return GAL value - excel

Question

i have a very simple small app in mind which will help me save time from alt tabbing from excel to outlook. i want to create a small userform that will have a textbox for a exchange user alias and return the exchange user's full name. now the issue i have here is that the guide in msdn is a little vague for a userform: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff869721.aspx and i'm getting some error messages, some got fixed by activating some references. and the code is quite complicated.
so basically i have 2 textboxes and a button. textbox1 will accept the alias, textbox2 will return the username after clicking the button.
there are several examples but most of them will result in dumping the GAL to an excel file which i don't need.
thanks in advanced

Answer 1

This will give you what you want.
Private Function GetFullName(inAlias As String) As String
Dim olApp As Outlook.Application
Dim olNS As Outlook.Namespace
Dim olAdd As Outlook.AddressEntries
Dim olMem As Outlook.AddressEntry
Dim olLst As Outlook.AddressList
Dim olAlias As String
On Error Resume Next
Set olApp = New Outlook.Application
On Error GoTo 0
If olApp Is Nothing Then
GetFullName = "Source not available"
Exit Function
End If
Set olNS = olApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set olLst = olNS.GetGlobalAddressList
Set olAdd = olLst.AddressEntries
For Each olMem In olAdd
On Error Resume Next
olAlias = olMem.GetExchangeUser.Alias
On Error GoTo 0
If olAlias = inAlias Then
GetFullName = olMem.GetExchangeUser.Name
Exit For
Else
GetFullName = "Invalid Alias"
End If
Next
Set olApp = Nothing: Set olNS = Nothing: Set olAdd = Nothing
End Function
The draw back is this may take a while if your GAL is quite large.
I'll check if I can dump the list to an array first and then manipulate from there.
Or if there is another way to get to the name via alias using other method.
But for now, try learning from this first.
This is a function, so to get it to your textbox, you can simply:
TextBox2 = GetFullname(TextBox1)
Note:
I intentionally declared all the objects, you need to know what type of object you're working on. Also I used On Error Resume Next because there are AddressEntry without Alias and that gives error. That's the easiest work around I can think of for now.
Requirement:
You need to reference Microsoft Outlook xx.x Object Library.
xx.x vary depending on the Outlook version installed in your machine.