Volume 26 Issue 30

Today's Highlights

• Outlook Calendar issues when changing to/from Daylight time
• Inbox Shopping
• Find Owner of a Shared Calendar
• Create an appointment to reminder you when the time changes

Outlook Calendar issues when changing to/from Daylight time

Outlook on Windows has a display problem that affects the day or week calendar views during the first week of Daylight or Standard time and the calendar week starts on Sunday.  It tends to generate more complaints when going on Daylight time, but also affects the return to Standard time. It’s not a new problem, it’s been around as long as Outlook has supported multiple time zones.

The problem: Outlook’s time scale is 24 hours. It doesn’t repeat or skip 2 AM when the time changes. Appointments aren’t affected and have the correct time, just the time scale is goofy.

When you display multiple time zones with the default time zone east of the additional time zones, the time difference will appear wrong. A 3-hour time difference will appear to be 2 or 4 hours (depending on the direction the clock changes). If you use a weekly calendar and start the week on Sunday, the time scale is messed up all week. Using a day or work week view and starting the week on Monday will solve the problem for the week.

This was fixed in Outlook on Mac and it will skip or repeat hours in the time scale.

The solution for Outlook on Windows (or older versions of Outlook on Mac): Use the day or work week view, not the full week view.

I have screenshots showing the problem at Daylight Saving Time Calendar Display Bugs

Curious about Daylight Saving Time worldwide? See Daylight Saving Time Around the World 2021 (timeanddate.com)

Inbox Shopping

… or Microsoft is introducing another feature we don’t need…

Outlook.com on the web is rolling out a new experience for US customers in the shopping/promotional emails from their merchants. Customers will have an "enhanced experience" with the shopping site within the email and the ability to connect to the shopping site efficiently.

I shouldn’t be a naysayer, at least until I've seen a shopping email or two. Maybe they will be highly useful and same me tons of time. Time will tell. Plus, it can be turned off in Outlook.com Settings.

Learn more about it here: Inbox shopping with Outlook.com

Find the Owner of a Shared Calendar

An admin had a problem: some of his users had a shared calendar. One user lost access to the calendar. No one knew whose mailbox the calendar was in so they could add it back to the profile.

Normally, you right click on the Calendar and choose Properties and see the mailbox name in the Location field, but the location field was blank.

That leaves PowerShell. The Exchange admin can search for all calendars where a user has access rights assigned. In this case, the admin will use one of the users who still has access to the calendar.

Use the Get-MailboxFolderPermission cmdlet to search all mailboxes for the calendar name and access permissions for a specific user. The only problem: you need to know the folder path. If you need to find the default calendar, its easy: it will be named <SMTP address>\Calendar. If it’s a subfolder of the default Calendar, look for <SMTP address>\Calendar\calendar-name. A user-created calendar at the same level as the Inbox would be <SMTP address>\calendar-name.

Fortunately, subfolder of calendar or same level as the Calendar are the most common places users create new calendars. Because if the user created the calendar in another folder or as a sub folder or a subfolder, this method won’t work as you need to know the path within the mailbox. If you don't know the path, you need to get a list of all folders in each mailbox then find the calendar name.

Use this PowerShell to find the mailbox where a calendar named Vacations is in the default calendar folder:

Get-Mailbox | ForEach { Get-MailboxFolderPermission (($_.PrimarySmtpAddress.ToString())+”:\Calendar\Vacations”) -User username -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue} | select Identity,User,AccessRights

Create an appointment to reminder you when the time changes

A user asked why Daylight time changes were not included in a calendar, like holidays are. Best guess: it would be on the calendar as an all day event, and in most, if not all countries, the dates follow a pattern, which is perfect for a recurring appointment.

If you want to add an event to your calendar when the time changes, create two recurring appointments. In the US and Canada, the spring appointment will have a recurrence pattern for the second Sunday in March. The Fall event will recur the first Sunday in November.

New & Updated Exchange Server KB Articles

Transport and mailbox rules in Exchange Online or in on-premises Exchange Server don't work as expected
Describes an issue in which transport and mailbox rules don't work correctly in Exchange Online or in on-premises Exchange Server. Provides a resolution.

Other Resources

Office 365: Send using Mailbox Alias Addresses
How to send using secondary addresses on Office 365 Exchange accounts, using Outlook on Windows, Outlook on the web, or Outlook mobile.

List snoozed reminders and snooze-times
How to use a VBA macro to list all snoozed times for Appointments, Flagged messages, and Tasks.

Scheduling a Recurring Message
How to configure Outlook to send a recurring email on a schedule, using VBA or PowerShell.

Create a New Message using an HTML File or Stationery
Create a new message using Stationery or any HTML file using the standard commands of More Stationery or Insert > Insert as Text command, or automate it using a macro or PowerShell to create the message.