iCal Timezone Issue with Microsoft Outlook

[William Ronat]

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?

[George]

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

[William Ronat]

Do a test import where the events are using the timezone America/New York.

• Server time offset comparison in Settings is correct.
• Event set for 8am start
• Checked iCal file: “America/New_York”:20160406T080000
• Outlook shows INCORRECT 9am start

Then do a test import where the events are using the timezone UTC-5.
Eastern time is actually UTC-4 currently due to daylight savings time, so I used that.

• Server time offset comparison in Settings is correct.
• Event set for 8am start
• Checked iCal file: “UTC-4”:20160406T080000
• Outlook shows CORRECT 8am start

I decided to do one more test…

Importing an event set to America/New York timezone from before Daylight Savings Time started (March 13).

• Server time offset comparison in Settings is correct.
• Event set for 8am start
• Checked iCal file: “America/New_York”:20160301T080000
• Outlook shows CORRECT 8am start

So I think Outlook is having trouble applying Daylight Savings Time to the “America/New_York” time zone ID. I exported an iCal file from Outlook for a test event to see how it handles time zone and it doesn’t set one, it just uses UTC and I guess converts it to my set time zone when it’s added to the calendar. Exporting the imported event with the incorrect time shows a UTC time that translates to the (incorrect) 9am UTC-4 time.

I would guess that when Outlook sees “America/New_York” it equates it to UTC-5, no matter if Daylight Savings Time is going on or not, and therefore adds an hour to translate it to UTC-4 (during Daylight Savings Time), which makes it an hour later than it should be.

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? I think Outlook would correctly translate them to the users’ time zones and the issue would be solved. I don’t know how other calendar applications would handle it though…

[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

[Support Droid]

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.

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