Everything works as expected, except when the 'Daylight Saving Time' is effective. In this scenario, when the meeting organizer or invitees receives the e-mail with the invitation, initially the start time and end time show up correctly. But if I send another invitation or wait for few moments, the former invitation start time jumps one hour. Time zone offset is the time for your geographic region in relation to UTC. For example, the Pacific Time zone is 8 hours behind UTC. Therefore, if it is 8 P.M. UTC, the time in the Pacific Time zone is noon. Daylight saving time rules. Daylight saving time rules are the rules by which certain regions seasonally change their time zone offset.

• This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 1 month ago by .

• We’re having an issue on every site of ours I’ve checked that runs the plugin where, when the iCal file is imported into Microsoft Outlook, the event’s start and end times are one hour later than what they should be.

  I checked the iCal file and the time zone and time code seem to be correct, so I think it’s an issue with how Microsoft Outlook is interpreting the time zones and possibly daylight savings time. Changing the time zone that is set in the event post from America/New York to America/Los Angeles moves the incorrect event time forward 3 hours as expected. I did notice that if the time zone for the event is set to UTC+0, the time is correct when imported into Outlook.

  This is happening both in the Twenty Fourteen theme with The Events Calendar being the only plugin activated and in custom themes with many plugins and Events Calendar add-ons. We’re experiencing this on both single event and multiple event iCal files. And since the issue was originally reported by a client, I know it’s not just a problem with how our Outlook is set up.

  I saw a lot of issues with iCal exported times when I searched your support forums, but none seemed to match up exactly. I also saw a couple issues reported on general iCal/Outlook compatibility in regard to time zones in Google searches.

  Any ideas?

  Thanks for reporting this, @Jay—sorry for the trouble here!

  Two things stand out to me about your issues. First is what you said here:

  I checked the iCal file and the time zone and time code seem to be correct, so I think it’s an issue with how Microsoft Outlook is interpreting the time zones and possibly daylight savings time.

  If our generated time zones are correct, and Outlook is getting the timing wrong a bit, then unfortunately it may indeed be an Outlook issue that we (and you) are at the mercy of. 🙁

  However, this is interesting:

  Changing the time zone that is set in the event post from America/New York to America/Los Angeles moves the incorrect event time forward 3 hours as expected. I did notice that if the time zone for the event is set to UTC+0, the time is correct when imported into Outlook.

  What happens with events when you use their UTC numerical equivalents? So, in other words, for example
  • Do a test import where the events are using the timezone America/New York.
  • Then do a test import where the events are using the timezone UTC-5.

  Is there any difference in behavior in this specific testing?

  Thank you!
  George

  Thank you so much for your testing here.

  What you wrote here is unfortunately not possible at this time:

  Is it possible for the calendar on the site to use America/New_York but have the iCal files generate with the appropriate UTC+0 timestamps?

  However, I wanted to confirm that this appears to be the bug:

  So I think Outlook is having trouble applying Daylight Savings Time to the “America/New_York” time zone ID.

  We’ve confirmed that this is a bug and have a fix coming out in the next maintenance release that SHOULD address this. That update should be published in the next two weeks.

  I’m sorry about the timeline here but just wanted to share that our own testing yields similar results to your testing. We’re working on a fix here and it should do the job.

  Daylight Savings Time strikes again!

  Thank you for your patience here, @Jay. Stay tuned for that next update and let me know any other thoughts/questions you might have here in the meantime.

  Sincerely,
  George

  This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

  If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
  and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

• The topic ‘iCal Timezone Issue with Microsoft Outlook’ is closed to new replies.

The Daylight Saving Time switch took place early Sunday morning and as most experts predicted, the world didn’t come to an end. Computers that had been “patched” with the latest updates automatically adjusted to the new start of daylight saving time.

But just because your PC’s operating system is up-to-date doesn’t mean that everything will be OK. I worry that many people might be late for appointments because their calendaring software – specifically Microsoft Outlook – may not be fully aware of the time shift.

Here’s the problem. If, prior to the time switch, you made any appointments that take place between March 11 and April 1, Outlook might get the time wrong. For example, if you have an appointment for 9:00 a.m. on Monday, it might show up in Outlook as 10:00 a.m. That’s because Outlook’s calendar isn’t necessarily in synch with your computer’s clock. Appointments after April 1st should be OK because that’s when the switch would have taken place before it was changed by federal law.

It’s the same thing that happens when you change a time zone on your PC. Imagine you’re in California making an appointment on your laptop for a 9:00 a.m. meeting you plan to attend in New York a couple of days later. You set the meeting for 9:00 a.m. and as you’re about to get on the plane, you click on the clock in the lower right corner of your Windows screen to configure the operating system for Eastern Time so your clock and calendar will be accurate when you arrive in New York.

Trouble is, Outlook tries to be smart and now that it sees that the time zone has changed, it adjusts the meeting accordingly so that that 9:00 AM meeting will now show up at noon. In relative terms, the calendar is in a sense correct – 9 A.M. Pacific is noon eastern – but in reality, you’ve shifted time zones because you and your laptop got on a cross country flight and Outlook thinks the meeting has shifted as well.

The switch in Daylight Saving Time has a similar impact. That appointment you set up for 9:00 AM will show up at 10:00 AM because your computer’s clock has shifted and Outlook – for some reason – thinks your appointments have shifted.

The solution, according to Microsoft, is to download and apply a patch that will adjust your appointments back to the correct time after your PC has changed to daylight saving time.

If this all seems a bit confusing, don’t feel bad. I’m having a tough time getting my head around the problem and understanding why there is a problem in the first place. It seems to me that if you set an appointment for a specific time, Outlook should respect that time regardless of what happens to daylight saving time or time zones but that is not how it works.

Outlook isn’t the only piece of software that can have a problem. I know of one company that’s struggling with a piece of software it relies on that is also having trouble adjusting to the time change, even though the clocks on the PCs operating the software have had no apparent problem making the switch.

Daylight Savings Time History

My advice is to start by checking the clock in the lower right corner of your screen. If that’s OK, run each of your mission critical programs to see if they’re OK, especially database programs, spreadsheets and, of course, calendar software – anything that is dependent on the time and date.

And don’t just stop with your PC. If your cell phone’s clock is wrong, turn it off and turn it back on again. If that doesn’t solve the problem, call the cell phone company by dialing 611. Check the clocks on your office and personal equipment including copiers, telephones, microwave ovens, DVD players, VCRs and digital cameras.

In many cases, these devices don’t update automatically so they will have no special issues regarding this year’s time change but if you’re like many people, you might not have a clue as to how to change their clocks and you may be just as clueless as to where the manual might be.

One solution is to go to retrevo.com to hunt for an online version of the manual. If you enter the item’s model number plus Set Clock, Retrevo will try to locate the exact page with the instructions. I did it with my microwave and, to my delight, I instantly found the right page.

Outlook For Mac Daylight Savings Time 2020

I didn’t need a manual to figure out how to adjust that old analog clock my mother gave me. I just pulled out the stem and advanced the hour hand. It was a sweet taste of the good old days.