Alternate way of sending email from Outlook to OneNote

Question

I've scoured the internet to find an answer, but was unable to find an answer. Here is my problem:

My organisation has a size limitation in Outlook 2013 inbox size. As such, we have had to come up with possible solutions to saving these emails in a comprehesive way which is easy to manage and easy to find way.

I've heard that we could possibly automatically send our emails directly to OneNote 2013. I've used the "send to OneNote" button in Outlook, however I was wondering if anyone has any better solution that could automatically create a section named the email sender's name if it does not exist and copy the email to a new page.

The only VBA code I have found in my searches is to either create a OneNote page or search, however my very limited knowledge in XML does not allow me to go further.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Here is some of the code I've found:

Option Explicit

Sub CreateNewPage()
    ' Connect to OneNote 2010.
    ' To see the results of the code,
    ' you'll want to ensure the OneNote 2010 user
    ' interface is visible.

    Dim OneNote As OneNote.Application
    Set OneNote = New OneNote.Application
    
    ' Get all of the Notebook nodes.
    Dim nodes As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
    Set nodes = GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes(OneNote)
    If Not nodes Is Nothing Then
        ' Get the first OneNote Notebook in the XML document.
        Dim node As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
        Set node = nodes(2)
        Dim noteBookName As String
        noteBookName = node.Attributes.getNamedItem("name").Text
        
        ' Get the ID for the Notebook so the code can retrieve
        ' the list of sections.
        Dim notebookID As String
        notebookID = node.Attributes.getNamedItem("ID").Text
        
        ' Load the XML for the Sections for the Notebook requested.
        Dim sectionsXml As String
        OneNote.GetHierarchy notebookID, hsSections, sectionsXml, xs2013
       ' Dim a As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
        Dim secDoc As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
        Set secDoc = New MSXML2.DOMDocument60
    
        If secDoc.LoadXML(sectionsXml) Then
            ' select the Section nodes
            Dim secNodes As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
            Debug.Print secDoc.DocumentElement.XML
            Dim soapNS
            soapNS = "xmlns:one='http://schemas.microsoft.com/office onenote/2013/onenote'"
            secDoc.SetProperty "SelectionNamespaces", soapNS
            Set secNodes = secDoc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("//one:Section")
            
            If Not secNodes Is Nothing Then
                ' Get the first section.
                Dim secNode As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
                Set secNode = secNodes(0)
                
                Dim sectionName As String
                sectionName = secNode.Attributes.getNamedItem("name").Text
                Dim sectionID As String
                sectionID = secNode.Attributes.getNamedItem("ID").Text
                
                ' Create a new blank Page in the first Section
                ' using the default format.
                Dim newPageID As String
                OneNote.CreateNewPage sectionID, newPageID, npsDefault
                
                ' Get the contents of the page.
                Dim outXML As String
                OneNote.GetPageContent newPageID, outXML, piAll, xs2013
                
                Dim doc As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
                Set doc = New MSXML2.DOMDocument60
                ' Load Page's XML into a MSXML2.DOMDocument object.
                If doc.LoadXML(outXML) Then
                    ' Get Page Node.
                    Dim pageNode As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
                    soapNS = "xmlns:one='http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/onenote/2013/onenote'"
                    doc.SetProperty "SelectionNamespaces", soapNS
                    Set pageNode = doc.SelectSingleNode("//one:Page")

                    ' Find the Title element.
                    Dim titleNode As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
                    Set titleNode = doc.SelectSingleNode("//one:Page/one:Title/one:OE/one:T")
                    
                    ' Get the CDataSection where OneNote store's the Title's text.
                    Dim cdataChild As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
                    Set cdataChild = titleNode.SelectSingleNode("text()")
                    
                    ' Change the title in the local XML copy.
                    cdataChild.Text = "A Page Created from VBA"
                    ' Write the update to OneNote.
                    OneNote.UpdatePageContent doc.XML
                    
                    Dim newElement As MSXML2.IXMLDOMElement
                    Dim newNode As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
                    
                    ' Create Outline node.
                    Set newElement = doc.createElement("one:Outline")
                    Set newNode = pageNode.appendChild(newElement)
                    ' Create OEChildren.
                    Set newElement = doc.createElement("one:OEChildren")
                    Set newNode = newNode.appendChild(newElement)
                    ' Create OE.
                    Set newElement = doc.createElement("one:OE")
                    Set newNode = newNode.appendChild(newElement)
                    ' Create TE.
                    Set newElement = doc.createElement("one:T")
                    Set newNode = newNode.appendChild(newElement)
                    
                    ' Add the text for the Page's content.
                    Dim cd As MSXML2.IXMLDOMCDATASection
                    Set cd = doc.createCDATASection("Is this what I need to change?")

                    newNode.appendChild cd
                 
                    
                    ' Update OneNote with the new content.
                    OneNote.UpdatePageContent doc.XML
                    
                    ' Print out information about the update.
                    Debug.Print "A new page was created in "
                    Debug.Print "Section " & sectionName & " in"
                    Debug.Print "Notebook " & noteBookName & "."
                    Debug.Print "Contents of new Page:"
                    
                    Debug.Print doc.XML
                End If
            Else
                MsgBox "OneNote 2010 Section nodes not found."
            End If
        Else
            MsgBox "OneNote 2010 Section XML Data failed to load."
        End If
    Else
        MsgBox "OneNote 2010 XML Data failed to load."
    End If
    
End Sub

Private Function GetAttributeValueFromNode(node As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode, attributeName As String) As String
    If node.Attributes.getNamedItem(attributeName) Is Nothing Then
        GetAttributeValueFromNode = "Not found."
    Else
        GetAttributeValueFromNode = node.Attributes.getNamedItem(attributeName).Text
    End If
End Function


Private Function GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes(OneNote As OneNote.Application) As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
    ' Get the XML that represents the OneNote notebooks available.
    Dim notebookXml As String
    ' OneNote fills notebookXml with an XML document providing information
    ' about what OneNote notebooks are available.
    ' You want all the data and thus are providing an empty string
    ' for the bstrStartNodeID parameter.
    OneNote.GetHierarchy "", hsNotebooks, notebookXml, xs2013
    
    ' Use the MSXML Library to parse the XML.
    Dim doc As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
    Set doc = New MSXML2.DOMDocument60
    
    If doc.LoadXML(notebookXml) Then
       Dim soapNS
       soapNS = "xmlns:one='http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/onenote/2013/onenote'"
        doc.SetProperty "SelectionNamespaces", soapNS
        Set GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes = doc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("//one:Notebook")
        Debug.Print doc.DocumentElement.XML
        
    Else
        Set GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes = Nothing
    End If
End Function

Answer 1

Are you using OneDrive for Business? If so, these Microsoft Flow templates might be very useful: https://ms.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/services/shared_onenote/onenote-business/. In particular, one is for sending important e-mails to OneNote. You can also create your own flow that has different triggers, and specify the name of the page/section you want to create.

Here is an example flow:

Note the "Add Dynamic Content" button. This allows you to specify the name and content of the section.

If you're not using O365, you might be able to use the Microsoft Graph API and the OneNote REST API together to achieve what you want. There aren't VBA examples but there are many others.