A way to do it, is to use the Unique ID as suggested by SilverNinja, and as he said that this is not permanent ID and it can be changed once the appointment is moved to different folder (like if it has been deleted for example).
A way to deal with this problem is to create an extended property, and put guid for the appointment, and it wont change unless you made a copy from another appointment (after all it is just a property)
I have it in C# , but I am sure it is pretty easy to convert to VB
private static readonly PropertyDefinitionBase AppointementIdPropertyDefinition = new ExtendedPropertyDefinition(DefaultExtendedPropertySet.PublicStrings, "AppointmentID", MapiPropertyType.String);
public static PropertySet PropertySet = new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.FirstClassProperties, AppointementIdPropertyDefinition);
//Setting the property for the appointment
public static void SetGuidForAppointement(Appointment appointment)
{
try
{
appointment.SetExtendedProperty((ExtendedPropertyDefinition)AppointementIdPropertyDefinition, Guid.NewGuid().ToString());
appointment.Update(ConflictResolutionMode.AlwaysOverwrite, SendInvitationsOrCancellationsMode.SendToNone);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// logging the exception
}
}
//Getting the property for the appointment
public static string GetGuidForAppointement(Appointment appointment)
{
var result = "";
try
{
appointment.Load(PropertySet);
foreach (var extendedProperty in appointment.ExtendedProperties)
{
if (extendedProperty.PropertyDefinition.Name == "AppointmentID")
{
result = extendedProperty.Value.ToString();
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// logging the exception
}
return result;
}