How to create Outlook Distribution lists in Excel VBA

[YajasK]

I manage a list of several committees within my group at work and each group has anywhere from 2 to 40 members. Each person is on 3 to 5 committees. I want to create a macro that can easily create Outlook distribution lists since people keep joining my group and people can always change committee preferences. I have already created a macro that scrolls through the committee matrix and creates a string for each committee with all the members included. The string is composed of the names (copied from the Outlook directory) separated by a semi-colon (ie. Summer, Kyle; Lindy, Maria; Sampson, Oscar). This way, I can just copy the cell and manually create a distribution list in outlook, click on add members, and all I have to do is paste the list as opposed to individually adding each member.

I would like to expand it so it actually creates the distribution lists automatically and either saves them in my Outlook contacts or saves them to the desktop or my documents so you can simply drag them into Outlook. That would probably be the easiest way as it would then prompt you if you want to overwrite existing distribution lists with the same names. I have found pieces of code scattered across the internet, but I get errors when the VBA is simply compiling.

[Hollyn]

Below is an example of a subroutine that looks across row 1 and creates distribution lists for each of the names found in those cells in the Outlook Contacts folder. You need to go to 'Tools > References' and set a reference to the Outlook library for the version of Office you have.

Sub MakeOLdistrList()

Dim olApp As Outlook.Application
Dim myDistList As Outlook.DistListItem

Set olApp = New Outlook.Application

colCount = ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Columns.Count

For C = 1 To colCount
Set myDistList = olApp.CreateItem(olDistributionListItem)
With myDistList
.DLName = Cells(1, C).Value
.Save
End With
Next C

Set olApp = Nothing

End Sub

[Koman]

Below is the example from VBA help that shows how to add members. I don't find it intuitive but it is the way it is.

Sub AddNewMembers()
Dim myOlApp As New Outlook.Application
Dim myNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim myDistList As Outlook.DistListItem
Dim myTempItem As Outlook.MailItem
Dim myRecipients As Outlook.Recipients
Set myNameSpace = myOlApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set myDistList = myOlApp.CreateItem(olDistributionListItem)
Set myTempItem = myOlApp.CreateItem(olMailItem)
Set myRecipients = myTempItem.Recipients
myDistList.DLName = _
InputBox("Enter the name of the new distribution list")
myRecipients.Add myNameSpace.CurrentUser.Name
myRecipients.Add "Dan Wilson"
myRecipients.ResolveAll
myDistList.AddMembers myRecipients
myDistList.Save
myDistList.Display
End Sub