[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…

[Author]

Posts