Thursday, September 10, 2020

Daylight Savings, Outlook Recurring Meetings, and Arizona

I do not remember creating recurring Outlook meeting across time zones. I have colleagues that invite me to meetings that are not in my time zone. The interesting thing is that when daylight savings changes, all the meetings created by those in time zones that observe daylight savings shift one hour for me. 

It got me thinking that if I create a recurring meeting using the Arizona time zone, the meeting will shift for those that are in time zones that do observe daylight savings. 

When I went to make my meeting recurring, I saw this dialog. 

It defaulted to the Arizona time zone since that is where I am. Here are two rules:

   1) If I create a recurring meeting when daylight savings is off, I need to use the the Mountain Time (US & Canada) time zone so that the meeting will shift to a new time (relative to AZ) when daylight savings starts. 

2) If I create a recurring meeting when daylight savings is on, I need to use the the Pacific Time (US & Canada) time zone so that the meeting will shift to a new time (relative to AZ) when daylight savings stops. 

Following these rules should make it so the meeting does not shift for my work mates that are in time zones that do observe daylight savings. The rule can also be stated as: Use the time zone that matches the AZ time zone at the time you create the recurring meeting. 

I tried looking this issue up on the Internet, and did not find this strategy. I have found that this strategy does work for those sane state of Arizona who do not shift their time. 


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