In working with Send to Trello, Send to Planner and Send to Asana, I found one of the most complicated tasks in Outlook JS is trying to determine where an email reply ends, and the original message begins in order to get the latest response in a Message.Read scenario.
Seems simple enough that you look for the break between the messages, our eyes pick that up fairly easily. I have not tried AI yet, but that is a next step for sure.
However, wanted to share what I have found works in most cases. I created an ES6 class OutlookEmailBodyParser. And you use it like this:
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| const emailBody = new Promise((resolve, reject) => { | |
| try { | |
| Office.context.mailbox.item.body.getAsync(type, (result) => { | |
| if (result.status === Office.AsyncResultStatus.Succeeded) { | |
| resolve(result.value); | |
| } else { | |
| reject(result.error); | |
| } | |
| }); | |
| } catch { | |
| reject("Unable to get email body text."); | |
| } | |
| }); | |
| const parser = new OutlookEmailBodyParser(emailBody); | |
| return parser.getLatestResponse(); |
And here is the class that does all the work:
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| export default class OutlookEmailBodyParser { | |
| /** @type {String} */ | |
| #body = null; | |
| /** | |
| * Creates an instance of the Outlook Email Body Parser | |
| * Next you call: | |
| * – getLatestResponse() to get the most recent message | |
| * @param {String} body | |
| */ | |
| constructor(body) { | |
| this.#body = body; | |
| } | |
| /** | |
| * Returns the latest response | |
| */ | |
| getLatestResponse = () => { | |
| const lines = this.#body.replace("/\r/g", "\n").split("\n"); | |
| // any line that starts with a word, a color and a space, like From: , to: , Cc:, Date: | |
| const prologLine = /(^[A-Z]{2,8}:\s)/i; | |
| // any line that ends with a colon | |
| const lineEndsWithColon = /^.+(:)$/; | |
| // covers general patterns of first.last@email.domain | |
| const emailRegex = /[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,6}/; | |
| // covers ——-, _______, —–original message—-, _______PREV______ | |
| const breakRegex = /^([-_]+(\w{0,15}(\s|\s{0})){0,3}[-_]+)$/; | |
| // looks for a 4 digit number on the line, we grab it and see if it looks reasonable | |
| // meaning in compare is the 4 digit number starting with 19 or 20. | |
| const containsYear = /([/\s][0-9]{4})/; | |
| // looks for a time in formats 4:44, 16:44, 4:44 AM, 4:44 PM | |
| // we then look at capture groups to verify in range | |
| const containsTime = /\s([0-9]{1,2}):([0-9]{2})(\w{2}|\s\w{2}|:[0-9]{2}|.{0})/; | |
| // — START — | |
| var breakOnLine = ""; | |
| var fFoundLineBreak = false; | |
| var candidateLines = 0; | |
| var prevLine = ""; | |
| for (const line of lines) { | |
| var gmailFoundCount = 0; | |
| var outlookFoundCount = 0; | |
| if (breakRegex.test(line)) { | |
| fFoundLineBreak = true; | |
| candidateLines++; | |
| prevLine = line; | |
| continue; | |
| } | |
| if (emailRegex.test(line)) { | |
| gmailFoundCount++; | |
| outlookFoundCount++; | |
| } | |
| if (prologLine.test(line)) outlookFoundCount++; | |
| if (lineEndsWithColon.test(line)) gmailFoundCount++; | |
| if (containsYear.test(line)) { | |
| const year = containsYear.exec(line); | |
| if (year.length === 2) { | |
| const num = Number.parseInt(year[0].trim()); | |
| if (!Number.isNaN(num) && num > 1900 && num < 2100) { | |
| gmailFoundCount++; | |
| outlookFoundCount++;); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| } | |
| if (containsTime.test(line)) { | |
| const time = containsTime.exec(line); | |
| if (time.length >= 3) { | |
| const hour = Number.parseInt(time[1].trim()); | |
| const min = Number.parseInt(time[2].trim()); | |
| if (!Number.isNaN(hour) && !Number.isNaN(min) && hour >= 0 && hour <= 23 && min >= 0 && min <= 59) { | |
| gmailFoundCount++; | |
| outlookFoundCount++; | |
| } | |
| } | |
| } | |
| if (fFoundLineBreak) outlookFoundCount++; | |
| //////////////////////////////////// | |
| // VALIDATE OUTLOOK | |
| //////////////////////////////////// | |
| if (candidateLines >= 1 && outlookFoundCount > 2) { | |
| breakOnLine = prevLine; | |
| break; | |
| } | |
| //////////////////////////////////// | |
| // VALIDATE GMAIL | |
| //////////////////////////////////// | |
| if (gmailFoundCount >= 4) { | |
| breakOnLine = line; | |
| break; | |
| } | |
| if (candidateLines === 1 && gmailFoundCount === 1) { | |
| breakOnLine = prevLine; | |
| break; | |
| } | |
| //////////////////////////////////// | |
| // reset | |
| //////////////////////////////////// | |
| if (candidateLines === 3) candidateLines = 0; | |
| if (outlookFoundCount >= 2) candidateLines++; | |
| if (gmailFoundCount === 3) candidateLines++; | |
| if (candidateLines === 1) prevLine = line; | |
| fFoundLineBreak = false; // must set here | |
| } | |
| var latestResponse = this.#body; | |
| if (breakOnLine) { | |
| const pos = this.#body.indexOf(breakOnLine); | |
| latestResponse = this.#body.substring(0, pos); | |
| } | |
| // return | |
| return latestResponse; | |
| }; | |
| } |