Outlook birthday/anniversary/all day appointments - time zone

[Guest]

Hi.

I have noticed this problem and it has been posed by many users before, but
I don't think anyone has seen this problem.

If I create a contact, and have information about his/her birthday, I
usually enter it as well. Outlook creates an all-day calendar item for me --
handy, except that it's incredibly annoying when you travel across time zones
regularly. So birthdays end up spanning time zones.

But here's a big caveat that I don't think anyone's caught:
1) Change your timezone to GMT-12
2) Create a contact and enter a birthday
3) Change your timezone to GMT +12/GMT+13
4) Look at your contact's birthday.

The end result is that the birthday is shifted by a day!

I respectuflly disagree with the programmers/design engineers at Microsoft
who decided that this is a feature, not a bug, that all-day appointments will
shift in time.

I celebrate my birthday on (date) no matter where on the planet I am - I
certainly don't celebrate my birthday on (date +1) or (date -1) depending on
where I am.

Suggestion: add a way to make an appointment in "absolute time" - i.e. it
will not vary with timezones. So an appointment at 13:00 will be 13:00
wherever I am. Moreover, all-day appointments should automatically have this
feature enabled.

I hope that there is a way that this could be released as a hotfix for
Outlook 2003 - I have seen many, many people who travel gripe about this. Or,
at least make available a tool that will go through all your {recurring,
non-recurring} all day appointments and contacts and fix the date.

Thank you. Hope to hear a positive response.

 

[Brian Tillman]

If I create a contact, and have information about his/her birthday, I
usually enter it as well. Outlook creates an all-day calendar item
for me -- handy, except that it's incredibly annoying when you travel
across time zones regularly. So birthdays end up spanning time zones.

The best way to handle that is to enable dual timezones in Outlook rather
than changing your PC's time zone. Tools>Options>Calendar Options>Time
Zonce>Show an additional time zone.

I respectuflly disagree with the programmers/design engineers at
Microsoft who decided that this is a feature, not a bug, that all-day
appointments will shift in time.

But they don't shift in time. They remain exactly where they were placed.
You are doing the shifting by changing the TZ of your PC.

I celebrate my birthday on (date) no matter where on the planet I am
- I certainly don't celebrate my birthday on (date +1) or (date -1)
depending on where I am.

So, if you were in Australia on your birthday while your family is in the US
(still on the prior day), and flew back to the US that day and arrived on
your birthday (the next day), you'd tell them, "oh, forget it. I already
celebrated my birthday."?

Suggestion: add a way to make an appointment in "absolute time" -
i.e. it will not vary with timezones. So an appointment at 13:00 will
be 13:00 wherever I am. Moreover, all-day appointments should
automatically have this feature enabled.

Despite what I said, I think events that would slide with the time zone
(absolute time appointments are what Outlook does already) would be a good
idea.

I hope that there is a way that this could be released as a hotfix for
Outlook 2003 - I have seen many, many people who travel gripe about
this.

I wouldn't hold your breath. I can conceive of an adjustment to Outlook
2007, but I doubt they'll do a lot of development on OL 2003 except to fix
security hold and update the junk mail filter.