iCal invite to Entourage 2004 timezone problem

A

Aaron Marks

I think that there is some sort of problem with the way that Entourage
reads *.ics files. I just had a co-worker send me an invitation to a
meeting from iCal and when I got the invitation it said at the top:

When: Saturday, December 17, 2005 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM US/Pacific (6:30 PM
Locally)

I had to manually go into the event and set it to the correct timezone.

The person that sent me the invitation has another Apple laptop running
OS X 10.4.3 just as I do except for that he is using Apple Mail and
iCal whereas I'm using Entourage 2004. We both have the latest
versions of our respective software. (Mail 2.0.5/iCal 2.0.3 and
Entourage 2004 11.2.1).

This problem bugged me so much that the hours were off because our
whole office uses Apples (and is divided between Entourage 2004 and
iCal) that I then went around to test this on a few of the other
machines and experienced the exact same results.

I'm about 99% sure that this is a bug and would like to hear back from
one of the MVP's if possible if there is anyways that some sort of
hotfix could be made for this since I'm pretty sure that iCal complies
exactly to the iCalendar standard.

This is just a huge hinderance to us at the office since we have to
exchange invitations frequently and it's going to be impossible to get
everyone working on the same platform.

Thank you for any help!
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

I think that there is some sort of problem with the way that Entourage
reads *.ics files. I just had a co-worker send me an invitation to a
meeting from iCal and when I got the invitation it said at the top:

When: Saturday, December 17, 2005 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM US/Pacific (6:30 PM
Locally)

I had to manually go into the event and set it to the correct timezone.

The person that sent me the invitation has another Apple laptop running
OS X 10.4.3 just as I do except for that he is using Apple Mail and
iCal whereas I'm using Entourage 2004. We both have the latest
versions of our respective software. (Mail 2.0.5/iCal 2.0.3 and
Entourage 2004 11.2.1).

This problem bugged me so much that the hours were off because our
whole office uses Apples (and is divided between Entourage 2004 and
iCal) that I then went around to test this on a few of the other
machines and experienced the exact same results.

I'm about 99% sure that this is a bug and would like to hear back from
one of the MVP's if possible if there is anyways that some sort of
hotfix could be made for this since I'm pretty sure that iCal complies
exactly to the iCalendar standard.

This is just a huge hinderance to us at the office since we have to
exchange invitations frequently and it's going to be impossible to get
everyone working on the same platform.

Thank you for any help!
Click to expand...


Can you send me (off-list) a copy of the .ics file? I can take a look at see
if it is compliant.
 
A

Aaron Marks

Can you send me (off-list) a copy of the .ics file? I can take a look at see
if it is compliant.
Click to expand...

You've got mail, I sent it to barry 4T mvps D0T org from aaron 4T
aaronmarks D0T com
 
A

Aaron Marks

Got it, thanks. I'll take a look and report back...
Click to expand...

Any news on this issue? I've been speaking with both you and Andy Ruff
and haven't heard anything back? With all these timezone issues I've
been hearing about I'm curious as to why they aren't being investigated
more thoroughly, or is it a fundamentally larger bug than I'm realizing?

Thank you.

-Aaron Marks
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

Any news on this issue? I've been speaking with both you and Andy Ruff
and haven't heard anything back? With all these timezone issues I've
been hearing about I'm curious as to why they aren't being investigated
more thoroughly, or is it a fundamentally larger bug than I'm realizing?

Thank you.

-Aaron Marks
Click to expand...

I do apologise for not getting back to you - I couldn't see anything wrong
with the invite you sent. Was that one that gave you problems?
 
A

Aaron Marks

I do apologise for not getting back to you - I couldn't see anything wrong
with the invite you sent. Was that one that gave you problems?
Click to expand...

No, it was the invite that was sent to me in that email. When a
iCal/Mail user sends an invite to a Entourage user the timezone is
always off (at least for GMT -8). Give it a try for yourself.... set
your computer to PST. Then in iCal create an event at say 5PM, next
click on the event and invite people... it'll auto open Mail and you
can send it back to yourself in Entourage. Then add it to Entourage
and you'll notice that the time is not right.

You can go into the event and set the timezone in Entourage and the
time will then correct itself. Because of this, it seems to me that
the problem is Microsoft using an unconventional naming scheme for the
timezones and then not having the rather simple code to interpret the
..ical standard.

I'm sure that this could be very easily implemented and I'd greatly
appreciate it because this is getting more and more annoying as every
week passes.

Thank you.

-Aaron Marks
 
A

Aaron Marks

I do apologise for not getting back to you - I couldn't see anything wrong
with the invite you sent. Was that one that gave you problems?
Click to expand...

Please Help..... I really want this to officially become recognised as
a bug so that I can go to the developers in the Entourage dept. of MS
and get them to fix this problem. This would of course be much easier
with your assistance Barry. Thank you.
 
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