Hey Outlook - My Birthday Didn't Move... But Do I Get More Presents?

[Kati Compton]

While traveling, I usually change the time zone on my PDA and laptop. The way Outlook normally works is to shift all of your appointments on your machine so that they still occur at the same time they did before in the time zone in which you created them. Follow me? One example of the way it works is if you have a meeting at work at 3pm, then you travel to a time zone two steps west and you teleconference for the meeting. It will look like the meeting has shifted to 1pm instead of 3pm, because that is the correct time given your current time zone. On the other hand, while you're traveling, you find out that your cousin has a soccer game at 10am the day after you return. You enter the appointment, but then after you get back it looks like it's at noon and you miss it.<br /><br />There have been many arguments over whether this is the "right" way to handle time zone changes, but I've come to expect it. What I <b>didn't</b> expect is what I noticed today: "full day" appointments ALSO get shifted. While they <i>look</i> like they don't have specific start/end times, internally it seems they are stored as midnight to midnight. So when I changed my time zone two hours earlier on this trip, and looked in my calendar, I was wondering why all the birthdays and anniversaries were now spanning two days. Just for fun I also created an appointment at one time zone extreme and switched to the other time zone extreme. Sure enough, it moved days.<br /><br />I'm not sure I agree with this one. On "all day" events, the specific time matters a lot less (or else I would have entered a time range!). I'm no more likely to call someone to wish them a happy birthday at 10pm or 2am than at midnight - I'm going to wait until we're <i>both</i> normally awake. It would be nice if there were a setting to make the day-long events immutable. Do you hear me, Microsoft? ;)

[karinatwork]

Oh, that is sooooooooooo annoying me as well. Thanks for finally pointing it out! I hope someone will listen to you!!

K.

[burtman007]

I'd have to do some test to see how mNotes coverts appointments, but Lotus Notes allows you to create a meeting and specify the timezone that it occurs in. Therefore, I can send a meeting invite to someone in Germany (for a conference call, for instance) and it shows up as my timezone, but inserts it into their calendar with their local timezone information.

Let me get mNotes working again and I'll try to see what it does when it replicates that appointment / meeting to the PPC...

[alexm]

Oh, that is sooooooooooo annoying me as well. Thanks for finally pointing it out! I hope someone will listen to you!!

K.

I totaly agree! I think this issue exists because it was not designed well form the beginning!
Thanks, and let's bring this to Microsoft's attention!

[OSUKid7]

I too really hope Microsoft changes this in Outlook 12 (or sooner!). The visual changes/improvements in Outlook have been nice, but there's still some major problems that need fixed.

[SHC]

I dont have this problem myself because I dont travel through time zones except on holiday however, WebIs, the makers of PocketInformant have a free programme which might help "PI Correct Time" - more information here http://www.pocketinformant.com/p_correcttime.php

[EricMCarson]

I resolve this by entering my Birthdays as recurring To-Do's, rather than appts. Works well and I never have to worry about time-shifting. That way, I can also check off to make sure I called the person, sent a present, whatever I wanted.

[brianchris]

You found a problem with how Outlook handles timezones? Shocking....simply shocking :wink:

In all fairness, Outlook is a pretty killer app.....they just need to have a focus group regarding time-zones. And I really don't travel that much.

On an interesting footnote, I noticed the behavior of the all day appointments spanning two days after I combined items between my PPC and Outlook after a partnership was being re-established. I don't know how your findings and my findings are related, but the symptom is the same.

[ambuslick]

I have been having this problem not with changing time zones, but with daylight savings time. twice a year I have to go in and manually change my shift rotation. I am on a 8 day rotation of days and nights, always the same times so I use 8 repeating apts. eveytime we change the clocks my device changes all my start and stop times by that 1 hour. :bad-words:

[ppcsurfr]

While traveling, I usually change the time zone on my PDA and laptop. The way Outlook normally works is to shift all of your appointments on your machine so that they still occur at the same time they did before in the time zone in which you created them. Follow me? One example of the way it works is if you have a meeting at work at 3pm, then you travel to a time zone two steps west and you teleconference for the meeting. It will look like the meeting has shifted to 1pm instead of 3pm, because that is the correct time given your current time zone. On the other hand, while you're traveling, you find out that your cousin has a soccer game at 10am the day after you return. You enter the appointment, but then after you get back it looks like it's at noon and you miss it.
That is why you are supposed to set your Pocket PC at the timezone of the target appointment. In this case, if you are going home and the appointment is in the home timezone, you're supposed to set your Pocket PC to your home timezone first befor you enter the time of the soccer game. Afterwhich, you will shift back to your current timezone which is the visiting timezone and go about the day normally.

There have been many arguments over whether this is the "right" way to handle time zone changes, but I've come to expect it. What I didn't expect is what I noticed today: "full day" appointments ALSO get shifted. While they look like they don't have specific start/end times, internally it seems they are stored as midnight to midnight. So when I changed my time zone two hours earlier on this trip, and looked in my calendar, I was wondering why all the birthdays and anniversaries were now spanning two days. Just for fun I also created an appointment at one time zone extreme and switched to the other time zone extreme. Sure enough, it moved days.
Birthdays remain on the same date... they DO NOT shift... they do not span 2 days.

Your birthdays may seem so because you might have entered them manually rather than let Outlook do it automatically when you enter the birthdate in the Contacts details.

So if my Birthday is on September 9, no matter where I am in the world, it will appear as September 9 on my Pocket PC. which is the date relative to me...

I'm not sure I agree with this one. On "all day" events, the specific time matters a lot less (or else I would have entered a time range!). I'm no more likely to call someone to wish them a happy birthday at 10pm or 2am than at midnight - I'm going to wait until we're both normally awake. It would be nice if there were a setting to make the day-long events immutable. Do you hear me, Microsoft? ;)

The effect of the change will vary as the difference in timezones become longer. If I were to make an appointment to greet a friend in Canada... and me in the Philppines, I would change timezones temporarily, go to his birthday... enter the appointment "Call Mike and greet him a Happy Birthday" on April 28 at about 8AM his time... I would have to call him up on April 28 my date at 8PM my time.

The calendar is such a good tool to use. The Pocket PC and Outlook handles them pretty well. Its performance just depends on how it the user makes use of its features.

Mabuhay! ~ Carlo

[ignar]

After my calendar screwed a couple of times, I completely stopped changing time zone wherever I go. I just change time rather than time zone, and fix my time zone to CST.

[Janak Parekh]

Your birthdays may seem so because you might have entered them manually rather than let Outlook do it automatically when you enter the birthdate in the Contacts details.
But what about other full-day events? Kati only cited that as one example. The semantics of shifting a full-day event by, say, 3 hours doesn't really make any sense.

By the way, I've tried to use Outlook's birthday feature, but it automatically creates appointments for me where I can't change the category. If I do, it recreates the birthday next time I visit the contact, resulting in duplications. :evil: I consider this broken, so I don't use the birthday field at all.

--janak

[ipaqmaniac]

I split my time between two time zones so I'm pretty used to dealing with more than one. Outlook has the ability to display more than one time zone at a time (Tools->Options->Calendar Options->Time Zone), and to switch between them. This is useful when entering appointments. I click on the correct block using the scale for the time zone the the appointment is in (home or away). This syncs with my ppc and while travelling, I change from "home" to "visiting" and all my appointments change to the correct time for where I am. It's slightly more complex when travelling to a third time zone, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to accomodate.

[daS]

Don't get me started on Outlook's timezones! :roll:

I'll just say that I will never change timezones on a Pocket PC again. Between the way that things get moved and the unreliable alarms, I just take a small alarm clock with me when I travel. :?

[zzzmarcus]

I've had the same problem and been confused as to why it happend in the first place... nice to know there was a reason and how to avoid it :)

[benthomas]

My work requires me to work regularly in about 14 different timezones. I find the way it is implemented excellent! If I have entered a friends birthday (who lives in New Zealand) into my system, and that friend has their birthday on July 1, but I happen to be in California on business at the time, I need to know on June 30! If I wait till it is July 1 in California, I will be a day too late to wish my friend a happy birthday!

The same applies to all my conference calls. If I have a conference call arranged with a customer in Australia for 10am Monday morning, I better call them on Sunday in California.

There is no need to miss appointments even though you change time zones, as the reminders come up 15 mins before the real time the event takes place (or whatever reminder time you have requested).

I spend less than a quarter of my time at home (Singapore) - and I find the implementation is very practical.

[Sven Johannsen]

And as these discussions have gone since the first Palm Sized PC sync'd with Outlook and people actually started using the Home/Visiting option, the camps are firmly, but relatively equally, divided.

The simple solution for those that hate the shift is change the time, not the timezone.

Those of you who like the shift, you are stuck with it all. The 4th of July from midnight to midnight in Washington DC happens at a different cosmic time than if you are vacationing in New Zealand. Surely you will want to drink your self silly during the appropriate 24hr period...relatively. ;)

I have always just hoped for the option of shifting appointments or not when using the Home/Visiting control panel. A simple check box would do.

[baker]

I sync with two computers (1 Outlook and 1 Lotus Notes). All day events sometimes become two day events after syncing. I've had to turn off "adjust for daylight saving time" on each computer and turn off internet time sync. I think the problem starts with Outlook and I'm not changing time zones.

[buckyg]

I do travel sometimes but don't rely on Outlook to change the timezones for appointments. I do display the dual timezones and schedule accordingly. It is nice to know an all-day event maybe a problem, though.

I've run into the same kind of issue with a Visual Studio .NET app. we use at work. Drove me nuts trying to figure out why the field guys would enter offline data with today's date but when they sync to our server, it would report it as yesterday. Even though the user chose a date, it was stored as a datetime value, with the UTC offset (i.e. UTC-5, 5 hours difference from UTC) The guys in an earlier timezone, one hour later than our server, were having their time converted from 29 July 12:00 on their machine to 28 July 23:00 on our server. I think this is the same basic idea we're talking about.

[daS]

And as these discussions have gone since the first Palm Sized PC sync'd with Outlook and people actually started using the Home/Visiting option, the camps are firmly, but relatively equally, divided.
Actually, the discussions date back further than even the Palm Sized PC: I was hit by this bug when I got my first Windows CE V1.0 Handheld PC and tried to use it in place of my trusty HP 200LX. I entered my flights as usual and after my meeting at NASA, I looked to see when my flight home departed. I saw I had plenty of time to take the public tour at the Cape. After the tour, I headed off to the airport and found out I had missed my flight! All due to an undocumented (at the time) feature :roll: of Outlook.

At least in the latest version of the Pocket PC changing timezones shows a (somewhat subtle) warning message that "Appointment times will shift to match the new time zone."

See, I told you not to get me started. :wink:

[Rob Alexander]

Birthdays remain on the same date... they DO NOT shift... they do not span 2 days.

Your birthdays may seem so because you might have entered them manually rather than let Outlook do it automatically when you enter the birthdate in the Contacts details.

So if my Birthday is on September 9, no matter where I am in the world, it will appear as September 9 on my Pocket PC. which is the date relative to me...


I have entered all of my birthday and anniversary dates via contacts, but when I circle the globe, changing my Pocket PC along the way, it gets back and it always screws them up, either putting them all back one day or spanning them across two days. It only seems to happen when my travel spans the international date line. You may well be able to say that it hasn't happened to you, but you're in no position to say that it doesn't happen to others. I don't believe I saw you on any of my trips.

But really, the way you enter the all-day appointment shouldn't be an issue anyway because every appointment should be returned to its original date and time when you return your PPC to its original time zone. Say I have an all-day appointment in August and I travel internationally in July. I use the PPC just as designed by changing the time zones as I travel. Now when I get back, that all day appointment should not be changed.... but it often is. That's a problem and it has nothing to do with not understanding the way MS does time zones. I like their way of doing it... in fact, it's the only way that it could actually work for people who travel widely, but this behavior with all-day appointments is a bug, pure and simple and MS needs to fix it.

[Rob Alexander]

My work requires me to work regularly in about 14 different timezones. I find the way it is implemented excellent! If I have entered a friends birthday (who lives in New Zealand) into my system, and that friend has their birthday on July 1, but I happen to be in California on business at the time, I need to know on June 30! If I wait till it is July 1 in California, I will be a day too late to wish my friend a happy birthday!

The same applies to all my conference calls. If I have a conference call arranged with a customer in Australia for 10am Monday morning, I better call them on Sunday in California.

There is no need to miss appointments even though you change time zones, as the reminders come up 15 mins before the real time the event takes place (or whatever reminder time you have requested).

I spend less than a quarter of my time at home (Singapore) - and I find the implementation is very practical.

I couldn't agree more that this is the only way you can implement this. People who think you could do otherwise simply don't work across widely varying time zones and don't realize that this is the only way it even can work. But this all-day appointment shift does happen and it's very annoying. When I get back home to my own time zone, everything should be back the way it was when I left. If it's not, then there's a bug in how they handle changes. It's been there since Windows CE 1.0 and it's long past time that MS should fix it.

[daS]

I couldn't agree more that this is the only way you can implement this. People who think you could do otherwise simply don't work across widely varying time zones and don't realize that this is the only way it even can work.
While I disagree, I do respect that those of you who feel that this is a feature and not a bug have a valid opinion. I ask that you respect my opinion as well.

I spent about 20 years doing international business travel. When I plan a trip, I will talk to someone in the city I'll be visiting and schedule meetings and other appointments. If writing them in a paper calendar (the paradigm used by Outlook) I will write the time of the appointment without regard to the time zone (for example, lunch at 12:00 noon). When I get to where I'm going, I look at the calendar and it says lunch is at 12:00 noon.

As for the idea that there is no other way to solve the problem, there is a very simple solution: Simply provide a check box that indicates the appointment is a "relative" appointment, which would then allow you to specify a city who's time zone the appointment is to be associated. This could be used for conference calls, etc.

[Kati Compton]

Birthdays remain on the same date... they DO NOT shift... they do not span 2 days

Your birthdays may seem so because you might have entered them manually rather than let Outlook do it automatically when you enter the birthdate in the Contacts details.

So if my Birthday is on September 9, no matter where I am in the world, it will appear as September 9 on my Pocket PC. which is the date relative to me...
I'm almost positive that some of these calendar items were added by setting the birthday of a contact, while others I created manually as "all day" appointments.

The effect of the change will vary as the difference in timezones become longer. If I were to make an appointment to greet a friend in Canada... and me in the Philppines, I would change timezones temporarily, go to his birthday... enter the appointment "Call Mike and greet him a Happy Birthday" on April 28 at about 8AM his time... I would have to call him up on April 28 my date at 8PM my time.
Sorry - going in to change my timezone before I make an appointment is just too much of a pain. If there were a drop-down to set the time zone of the appointment like someone else mentioned for Lotus Notes or something, that would be fine. But having to go into settings? Not good.

[Kati Compton]

But this all-day appointment shift does happen and it's very annoying. When I get back home to my own time zone, everything should be back the way it was when I left. If it's not, then there's a bug in how they handle changes. It's been there since Windows CE 1.0 and it's long past time that MS should fix it.
I'm not necessarily talking about a *permanent* shift that can't be undone by returning to the original time zone. But when I travel from Central to Pacific, while in that time zone I still want to see that my anniversary is on the 26th, not the 25th through the 26th.

[ChristopherTD]

I have entered birthdays as recurring all-day appointments when I was in New Zealand. When I returned to the UK they were split across two days and I am no longer sure which day is correct.

To my mind, an all-day appointment is just that, all day! There is no time component.

I believe this to be a bug, and agree with Rob that it should be addressed...

[Pony99CA]

I couldn't agree more that this is the only way you can implement this. People who think you could do otherwise simply don't work across widely varying time zones and don't realize that this is the only way it even can work.
While I disagree, I do respect that those of you who feel that this is a feature and not a bug have a valid opinion. I ask that you respect my opinion as well.
I'll respect your opinion that you'd like an option for the Calendar to behave differently (even though I disagree with that). I'll also agree that the time zone on an appointment should be able to be entered when creating the appointment; having to go to the Clock settings applet, while workable, does seem like a bit much.

However, if you call shifting appointments (not all-day ones, just general appointments) a bug, I won't respect that. It is clearly intended to work that way, and therefore can't be called a bug. Call it counter-intuitive -- fine. Call it poorly implemented -- fine. Call it a bug -- wrong. :-D

Now, if full-day appointments don't get restored to the proper day when you return the Clock settings applet to your home time, that is a bug.

I spent about 20 years doing international business travel. When I plan a trip, I will talk to someone in the city I'll be visiting and schedule meetings and other appointments. If writing them in a paper calendar (the paradigm used by Outlook) I will write the time of the appointment without regard to the time zone (for example, lunch at 12:00 noon). When I get to where I'm going, I look at the calendar and it says lunch is at 12:00 noon.
The problem with your paper analogy is that paper can't shift time zones. :-D Let's look at your scenario, but add a new appointment. Say your meeting at noon is three hours behind of your home time zone (PST vs. EST). Now say your boss asks you to call him at 5 PM after the meeting to give him the status. You enter a 5 PM call in your book and head off.

You go to your noon meeting, and make it. At 5 PM local time, you call your boss -- who waited an hour for your call and left for home two hours earlier and is mad.

You still have to account for time zones in this case and make sure you entered the call at 2 PM, or remember that the 5 PM call is home time, not local time. Using Outlook and entering the appointments the proper way, you wouldn't miss any of them.

The real problem is that people kind of expect Outlook to behave like a paper planner, but it's too smart. Adding time zones to appointment entries would give a visual indication that they should be taken into account.

Steve

[daS]

However, if you call shifting appointments (not all-day ones, just general appointments) a bug, I won't respect that. It is clearly intended to work that way, and therefore can't be called a bug. Call it counter-intuitive -- fine. Call it poorly implemented -- fine. Call it a bug -- wrong. :-D
I call it a bug because it's an unintended consequence of the fact that Outlook was designed with desktop and server computers in mind that don't move. The designers stored appointments in GMT and offset the displayed time in order to accommodate inviting contacts to conference calls and other shared appointments.

This made a lot of sense based on the idea that the user would not be changing the time zone on their computer. If you don't move, but you share appointments with people in other places, this is a great feature. But since Pocket Outlook needed to use the same database format, this feature on the desktop became a bug on the handheld - where the device itself moves.

I certainly understand the times when this bug is an advantage, but I maintain that those are much fewer than when it gets in the way. (See below.)

And yes I do know that there is a Knowledge Base paper explaining this as a feature, but that was written long after the fact to rationalize not fixing the bug.

The problem with your paper analogy is that paper can't shift time zones. :-D Let's look at your scenario, but add a new appointment. Say your meeting at noon is three hours behind of your home time zone (PST vs. EST). Now say your boss asks you to call him at 5 PM after the meeting to give him the status. You enter a 5 PM call in your book and head off.

Except that in such cases, I know that the call will be relative to another time zone and will enter it accordingly.

But let's add another twist in that scenario: I have my noon to 1:00PM appointment set for next Tuesday in Tokyo. Now another Japanese customer calls to ask if I can meet them next Tuesday as well. I can't simply look at my calendar to see that I'm busy from 12:00-1:00PM since until I change my time zone to Tokyo, the appointment time that is shown is wrong. I'd like someone to explain how that's a feature!

Then I get to Tokyo and change my time zone. Now all my appointments in Tokyo are on the correct time, but all my appointments for the following week in London are wrong - and all my appointments in the past show the wrong time as well.

The real problem is that people kind of expect Outlook to behave like a paper planner, but it's too smart. Adding time zones to appointment entries would give a visual indication that they should be taken into account.

As my old British boss used to say: it's "too clever by half". A program that does not behave in the most obvious manner, should at the very least be clear about it to the user.

But I know this is like religion and politics - I doubt we'll make any converts on either side. 8)

[Rob Alexander]

But this all-day appointment shift does happen and it's very annoying. When I get back home to my own time zone, everything should be back the way it was when I left. If it's not, then there's a bug in how they handle changes. It's been there since Windows CE 1.0 and it's long past time that MS should fix it.
I'm not necessarily talking about a *permanent* shift that can't be undone by returning to the original time zone. But when I travel from Central to Pacific, while in that time zone I still want to see that my anniversary is on the 26th, not the 25th through the 26th.

Oh sure, I get what you're saying now. Unforuntately, when you travel farther, you actually do get permanent shifts in these as well. It's interesting to note in the different comments people have made perfectly good reasons to both want them to shift and to want them not to shift. Actually, you'd think it would be trivial for them to allow you to tag an all-day appointment as either floating or fixed so that you could control the behavior to suit your needs. That would probably also solve my problem of having all-days shifting off by a day when I get back from a round-the-world trip, since I could just mark them as fixed.

[Rob Alexander]

But let's add another twist in that scenario: I have my noon to 1:00PM appointment set for next Tuesday in Tokyo. Now another Japanese customer calls to ask if I can meet them next Tuesday as well. I can't simply look at my calendar to see that I'm busy from 12:00-1:00PM since until I change my time zone to Tokyo, the appointment time that is shown is wrong. I'd like someone to explain how that's a feature!

Between your examples and Pony99CA's we really get to the heart of the matter. The reason I say this system is the only system that can work is because it is the only data system that can take account of the difference in time zones at the data level and handle it for you for any contingency.

Your response to Pony99CA's query is to calculate time zones manually. That's no solution. I didn't buy a PPC so that I still needed to figure these things out on paper. In contrast both of your examples turn out on close examination to be interface shortcomings rather than problems with the underlying data system.

Using your example, you certainly can look and see that you're busy at that time in Tokyo... by changing to that time zone when you look. The data system handles it as it should and keeps track of that for you.

Now I know that you'll be thinking how ridiculous that it because it takes X number of clicks on the screen to do that and the same to change back and so it's unreasonably cumbersome to do so. I completely agree, but that's an interface issue, not a problem in the concept of the data storage being tied to various time zones.

Yet the interface issue is easily solved (even if no one actually does it). Any programmer here could build you an interface that could make your example an easy thing to do. If the system were designed, for example, to note any time zone in which you have an appointment in the future and dynamically provide a set of radio buttons to quickly switch between them with one tap, then the task you've posed would be trivial. City Time comes close, but still doesn't make it as easy as it should be.

In contrast, the only solution you have to Pony99CA's dilemma is one that requires you to manually calculate the differences between time zones. You may personally choose to do so, but that's just not a solution for a system that is supposed to be able to handle these things for you. There is no way that you can make your paper calendar analog do a task like that one, but the task you pose is easily handled by a zone-based system if you simply have a decent interface (which admittedly MS does not provide).

But I know this is like religion and politics - I doubt we'll make any converts on either side. 8)

Agreed, and I think this is my final note on this. I'll read and consider any reply you post, but have pretty much said everything I have to say on the subject and so won't drag this on any further.

[Pony99CA]

However, if you call shifting appointments (not all-day ones, just general appointments) a bug, I won't respect that. It is clearly intended to work that way, and therefore can't be called a bug. Call it counter-intuitive -- fine. Call it poorly implemented -- fine. Call it a bug -- wrong. :-D
I call it a bug because it's an unintended consequence of the fact that Outlook was designed with desktop and server computers in mind that don't move. The designers stored appointments in GMT and offset the displayed time in order to accommodate inviting contacts to conference calls and other shared appointments.
Did laptops exist when Outlook was created? If so, did people travel with them? :-)

This made a lot of sense based on the idea that the user would not be changing the time zone on their computer. If you don't move, but you share appointments with people in other places, this is a great feature.
But, based on the way you've said you enter appointments, it won't work in the situation you listed! Consider what happens if you enter your noon lunch in California at noon even though you're in New York. Somebody sharing your calendar will get the time wrong unless they check and see the lunch is in California and correct the time themselves!

The problem with your paper analogy is that paper can't shift time zones. :-D Let's look at your scenario, but add a new appointment. Say your meeting at noon is three hours behind of your home time zone (PST vs. EST). Now say your boss asks you to call him at 5 PM after the meeting to give him the status. You enter a 5 PM call in your book and head off.
Except that in such cases, I know that the call will be relative to another time zone and will enter it accordingly.
But you don't know that your lunch is relative to a different time zone and so don't enter it accordingly? :confused totally:

But let's add another twist in that scenario: I have my noon to 1:00PM appointment set for next Tuesday in Tokyo. Now another Japanese customer calls to ask if I can meet them next Tuesday as well. I can't simply look at my calendar to see that I'm busy from 12:00-1:00PM since until I change my time zone to Tokyo, the appointment time that is shown is wrong. I'd like someone to explain how that's a feature!
The problem here is that the time shown is not wrong; it's displayed correctly for the time zone you're in.

The real problem is that people kind of expect Outlook to behave like a paper planner, but it's too smart. Adding time zones to appointment entries would give a visual indication that they should be taken into account.
As my old British boss used to say: it's "too clever by half". A program that does not behave in the most obvious manner, should at the very least be clear about it to the user.
I certainly won't argue that things should be clearer. The first time I noticed this behavior, it caught me by surprise, too. However, once I thought about it, the more it became clear that it made perfect sense.

Rob brought up the distinction between data format, which works correctly, and user interface, which certainly could be improved. To solve your issues, would the following two changes be sufficient?

Add a time zone field for entering times of appointments. Actually, you might need two time zone fields for entering flights that start in one time zone and end in another.

Add a view option in the Calendar that displays your appointments relative to a specified time zone. That will prevent the user from having to bounce back and forth between the Calendar and the Clock settings applet.

Microsoft would likely have to add the first item to Calendar (although developers of PIM replacements like Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion could add this themselves).

The second item could actually be done fairly easily by a competent Pocket PC programmer. The PIM applications allow plug-ins (my Calendar has Send via Bluetooth from HP's Bluetooth support and Find On Map... from Pocket Streets), and it seems like somebody could program a plug-in which displayed a list of time zones and set the system time zone to that value.

In fact, except for appointments that spanned time zones, you wouldn't really need the first item if the second was implemented.

I wonder if we should apologize to Kati for co-opting her thread to further debate the "moving appointment dilemma" (MAD) yet again. :-D

Steve

[ppcsurfr]

Your birthdays may seem so because you might have entered them manually rather than let Outlook do it automatically when you enter the birthdate in the Contacts details.
But what about other full-day events? Kati only cited that as one example. The semantics of shifting a full-day event by, say, 3 hours doesn't really make any sense.

By the way, I've tried to use Outlook's birthday feature, but it automatically creates appointments for me where I can't change the category. If I do, it recreates the birthday next time I visit the contact, resulting in duplications. :evil: I consider this broken, so I don't use the birthday field at all.

--janak

I know... :(

Looks like either way, you encounter something wrong with it...

I think with Kati's explanation... it's not really broken but simply lacking the correct visual alerts that are supposed to make timezone management an easier thing to use.

:|

Carlo

[ppcsurfr]

Birthdays remain on the same date... they DO NOT shift... they do not span 2 days.

Your birthdays may seem so because you might have entered them manually rather than let Outlook do it automatically when you enter the birthdate in the Contacts details.

So if my Birthday is on September 9, no matter where I am in the world, it will appear as September 9 on my Pocket PC. which is the date relative to me...


I have entered all of my birthday and anniversary dates via contacts, but when I circle the globe, changing my Pocket PC along the way, it gets back and it always screws them up, either putting them all back one day or spanning them across two days. It only seems to happen when my travel spans the international date line. You may well be able to say that it hasn't happened to you, but you're in no position to say that it doesn't happen to others. I don't believe I saw you on any of my trips.

But really, the way you enter the all-day appointment shouldn't be an issue anyway because every appointment should be returned to its original date and time when you return your PPC to its original time zone. Say I have an all-day appointment in August and I travel internationally in July. I use the PPC just as designed by changing the time zones as I travel. Now when I get back, that all day appointment should not be changed.... but it often is. That's a problem and it has nothing to do with not understanding the way MS does time zones. I like their way of doing it... in fact, it's the only way that it could actually work for people who travel widely, but this behavior with all-day appointments is a bug, pure and simple and MS needs to fix it.

Hmmm... weird... mine acts differently...

Using Outlook 2003 and WM2003...

Carlo

[ppcsurfr]

Birthdays remain on the same date... they DO NOT shift... they do not span 2 days

Your birthdays may seem so because you might have entered them manually rather than let Outlook do it automatically when you enter the birthdate in the Contacts details.

So if my Birthday is on September 9, no matter where I am in the world, it will appear as September 9 on my Pocket PC. which is the date relative to me...
I'm almost positive that some of these calendar items were added by setting the birthday of a contact, while others I created manually as "all day" appointments.

The effect of the change will vary as the difference in timezones become longer. If I were to make an appointment to greet a friend in Canada... and me in the Philppines, I would change timezones temporarily, go to his birthday... enter the appointment "Call Mike and greet him a Happy Birthday" on April 28 at about 8AM his time... I would have to call him up on April 28 my date at 8PM my time.
Sorry - going in to change my timezone before I make an appointment is just too much of a pain. If there were a drop-down to set the time zone of the appointment like someone else mentioned for Lotus Notes or something, that would be fine. But having to go into settings? Not good.

Exactly my point.

Time Zones are correct... the concept is correct, but the implementation seems to lack something... It doesn't tell you what time zone you're in... It should, like the desktop Outlook show both time zones if you are at least on the second time zone...

Well, that's how things are and we must learn how to use it IMHO...

It's like the concept of converting degrees farenheit to degrees centigrade... It's given... we just have to follow it... I guess with time zones, as long as we don't have a better way of viewing it, we should at least exert a little effort learning how to deal with it.

Carlo

[ppcsurfr]

However, if you call shifting appointments (not all-day ones, just general appointments) a bug, I won't respect that. It is clearly intended to work that way, and therefore can't be called a bug. Call it counter-intuitive -- fine. Call it poorly implemented -- fine. Call it a bug -- wrong. :-D
I call it a bug because it's an unintended consequence of the fact that Outlook was designed with desktop and server computers in mind that don't move. The designers stored appointments in GMT and offset the displayed time in order to accommodate inviting contacts to conference calls and other shared appointments.
Did laptops exist when Outlook was created? If so, did people travel with them? :-)

This made a lot of sense based on the idea that the user would not be changing the time zone on their computer. If you don't move, but you share appointments with people in other places, this is a great feature.
But, based on the way you've said you enter appointments, it won't work in the situation you listed! Consider what happens if you enter your noon lunch in California at noon even though you're in New York. Somebody sharing your calendar will get the time wrong unless they check and see the lunch is in California and correct the time themselves!

The problem with your paper analogy is that paper can't shift time zones. :-D Let's look at your scenario, but add a new appointment. Say your meeting at noon is three hours behind of your home time zone (PST vs. EST). Now say your boss asks you to call him at 5 PM after the meeting to give him the status. You enter a 5 PM call in your book and head off.
Except that in such cases, I know that the call will be relative to another time zone and will enter it accordingly.
But you don't know that your lunch is relative to a different time zone and so don't enter it accordingly? :confused totally:

But let's add another twist in that scenario: I have my noon to 1:00PM appointment set for next Tuesday in Tokyo. Now another Japanese customer calls to ask if I can meet them next Tuesday as well. I can't simply look at my calendar to see that I'm busy from 12:00-1:00PM since until I change my time zone to Tokyo, the appointment time that is shown is wrong. I'd like someone to explain how that's a feature!
The problem here is that the time shown is not wrong; it's displayed correctly for the time zone you're in.

The real problem is that people kind of expect Outlook to behave like a paper planner, but it's too smart. Adding time zones to appointment entries would give a visual indication that they should be taken into account.
As my old British boss used to say: it's "too clever by half". A program that does not behave in the most obvious manner, should at the very least be clear about it to the user.
I certainly won't argue that things should be clearer. The first time I noticed this behavior, it caught me by surprise, too. However, once I thought about it, the more it became clear that it made perfect sense.

Rob brought up the distinction between data format, which works correctly, and user interface, which certainly could be improved. To solve your issues, would the following two changes be sufficient?

Add a time zone field for entering times of appointments. Actually, you might need two time zone fields for entering flights that start in one time zone and end in another.

Add a view option in the Calendar that displays your appointments relative to a specified time zone. That will prevent the user from having to bounce back and forth between the Calendar and the Clock settings applet.

Microsoft would likely have to add the first item to Calendar (although developers of PIM replacements like Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion could add this themselves).

The second item could actually be done fairly easily by a competent Pocket PC programmer. The PIM applications allow plug-ins (my Calendar has Send via Bluetooth from HP's Bluetooth support and Find On Map... from Pocket Streets), and it seems like somebody could program a plug-in which displayed a list of time zones and set the system time zone to that value.

In fact, except for appointments that spanned time zones, you wouldn't really need the first item if the second was implemented.

I wonder if we should apologize to Kati for co-opting her thread to further debate the "moving appointment dilemma" (MAD) yet again. :-D

Steve

I think the best way to explain it is...

Time zones are correct, times are correct... entries made are wrong, therby creating confusion...

IMO, a little effort learning the concept of Time Zones and implementing it will lessen appointment problems. It's our stubborn nature that causes all problems such as this. What effort does 3 taps of the stylus take?

Carlo

[ppcsurfr]

But let's add another twist in that scenario: I have my noon to 1:00PM appointment set for next Tuesday in Tokyo. Now another Japanese customer calls to ask if I can meet them next Tuesday as well. I can't simply look at my calendar to see that I'm busy from 12:00-1:00PM since until I change my time zone to Tokyo, the appointment time that is shown is wrong. I'd like someone to explain how that's a feature!

Then I get to Tokyo and change my time zone. Now all my appointments in Tokyo are on the correct time, but all my appointments for the following week in London are wrong - and all my appointments in the past show the wrong time as well.


daS, the appointments are not wrong nor do they happen at the wrong time. In your examle all appointments are happening at the absolute time.

You're in the UK July 1... you set an appointment for a conference call at 12pm July 4 UK time... that would be GMT. You go to Japan... which is GMT +9... when do yu go and make the conference call? 12pm japan time? I don't think so... it will appear to you as 9PM Japan time on July 4. Now you don't miss that particular appointment because it tells you that you have a conference call at 9PM Japan time which is actually 12PM UK time.

What may be lacking is that it doesn't tell you what time it is happening in the UK... then you'll have to do the math... but if you look at it and really analyze it. All times are absolute and what keeps bugging you is the time relative to the moment you wrote the appointment in the other timezone.

Carlo

[Pony99CA]

I think the best way to explain it is...

Time zones are correct, times are correct... entries made are wrong, therby creating confusion...
That's what I think, too. Of course, as a usability advocate, I could argue that the system should adapt to the user, not the other way around. That's why Microsoft needs to make the time zone issue more explicit. Obviously many users get confused by this feature.

IMO, a little effort learning the concept of Time Zones and implementing it will lessen appointment problems. It's our stubborn nature that causes all problems such as this. What effort does 3 taps of the stylus take?
It's likely more than three taps, though.

Tap the Start menu.
Tap the Settings action.
Tap the System tab.
Tap the Clock applet.
Tap the Visiting radio button.

Assuming the visiting time zone is the one you want, that's five taps. If you have to set the visiting time zone, there are two more taps and a possible scroll.

Then, after you're done entering the appointment, you have to do five more taps to set your home time zone again.

So there are possibly 10-12 taps and a scroll. Rob's or my suggestions would reduce that to two taps and a possible scroll when entering an appointment (four taps and maybe two scrolls if the appointment spanned time zones). Viewing appointments at the "correct" times would take maybe four taps.

Steve

[ppcsurfr]

I'd have to do some test to see how mNotes coverts appointments, but Lotus Notes allows you to create a meeting and specify the timezone that it occurs in. Therefore, I can send a meeting invite to someone in Germany (for a conference call, for instance) and it shows up as my timezone, but inserts it into their calendar with their local timezone information.

Let me get mNotes working again and I'll try to see what it does when it replicates that appointment / meeting to the PPC...

This is how it's supposed to work with the Pocket PC as well... it is based on GMT and no matter which time zone you send it to, it shows thecorrect time relative to the timezone you sent it to.

Carlo

[ppcsurfr]

IMO, a little effort learning the concept of Time Zones and implementing it will lessen appointment problems. It's our stubborn nature that causes all problems such as this. What effort does 3 taps of the stylus take?
It's likely more than three taps, though.

Tap the Start menu.
Tap the Settings action.
Tap the System tab.
Tap the Clock applet.
Tap the Visiting radio button.

Assuming the visiting time zone is the one you want, that's five taps. If you have to set the visiting time zone, there are two more taps and a possible scroll.

Then, after you're done entering the appointment, you have to do five more taps to set your home time zone again.

So there are possibly 10-12 taps and a scroll. Rob's or my suggestions would reduce that to two taps and a possible scroll when entering an appointment (four taps and maybe two scrolls if the appointment spanned time zones). Viewing appointments at the "correct" times would take maybe four taps.

Steve

Ohh. I do it from the Today Screen...

1. Tap on the date
2. Select Time Zone.
3. accept.

Oh yeah... right...

4. confirm.

What I'd like to see is a drop down list in the appointments creation applet.

Also if you're doing appointments at different timezones, it also refelcts the other timezone area and time difference.

Carlo

[Pony99CA]

IMO, a little effort learning the concept of Time Zones and implementing it will lessen appointment problems. It's our stubborn nature that causes all problems such as this. What effort does 3 taps of the stylus take?
It's likely more than three taps, though.

Tap the Start menu.
Tap the Settings action.
Tap the System tab.
Tap the Clock applet.
Tap the Visiting radio button.

Assuming the visiting time zone is the one you want, that's five taps. If you have to set the visiting time zone, there are two more taps and a possible scroll.
Ohh. I do it from the Today Screen...

1. Tap on the date
2. Select Time Zone.
3. accept.

Oh yeah... right...

4. confirm.
Plus, if you're in the Calendar (or any other application), there's a tap or button push to get to the Today screen.

What I'd like to see is a drop down list in the appointments creation applet.

Also if you're doing appointments at different timezones, it also refelcts the other timezone area and time difference.
That would be good.

One thing I did for "fun" was actually count the time zones. I was shocked to find there were about 75. I would have guessed there weren't nearly that many.

Personally, I'd rather have the city list that Pocket PC 2000 had. I suppose that was harder for Microsoft to maintain, but we now have to figure out what time zone a city is in. For your home country, time zones may be sufficient, but, for traveling to a place you're not familiar with, you'd either have to ask somebody what time zone the city was in or look the city up somewhere (at something like Time And Date (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html), perhaps).

For example, there are three +10 time zones for Australia -- Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart (on Tasmania). If I'm visiting a different city (maybe Cairns), what time zone do I use? I could still have this problem with a city list of course, but I'd be more likely to get a match than I am now.

The other half of my request would be for Microsoft to add a method for adding cities to the database (and editing existing cities, if necessary).

Steve

[ppcsurfr]

That would be good.

One thing I did for "fun" was actually count the time zones. I was shocked to find there were about 75. I would have guessed there weren't nearly that many.

Personally, I'd rather have the city list that Pocket PC 2000 had. I suppose that was harder for Microsoft to maintain, but we now have to figure out what time zone a city is in. For your home country, time zones may be sufficient, but, for traveling to a place you're not familiar with, you'd either have to ask somebody what time zone the city was in or look the city up somewhere (at something like Time And Date (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html), perhaps).

For example, there are three +10 time zones for Australia -- Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart (on Tasmania). If I'm visiting a different city (maybe Cairns), what time zone do I use? I could still have this problem with a city list of course, but I'd be more likely to get a match than I am now.

The other half of my request would be for Microsoft to add a method for adding cities to the database (and editing existing cities, if necessary).

Steve

Yeah... because, I think with the implementation of UTC/GMT they also added time zones which have +.5hrs or -.5hrs.

Other than this, some timezones implement DST...

Oh well, I think the system is not wrong... nor is it confusing... what becomes confusing is because people expect to see so much data in a small screen...

But then, if someone can develop a plugin that allows you to quick toggle your Time Zone and enter dates when in this alternate time zone, then I think people will appreciate it even more.

Now, going back to moving Birthdays which is the main topic of this thread, I took a look at how it actually performs and this is what I found out.

Outlook for the desktop PC (Outlook 2003) handles whole day events such as Birthdays, Holidays, Anniversary, etc. as Time Zone dependent events. Meaning it handles the events as if the PC itself cannot traverse Time Zones, but keeps track of other Time Zones by showing the movement of these whole day events based on UTC/GMT.

Pocket Outlook, on the other hand, handles whole day events created from the desktop PC perfectly dependent on it's Local time... so whether you're in your own Time Zone or in the Visiting Time Zone, Christmas always happens on Dec 25, New Year always kicks in on January1 and so on and so forth. If you make whole day events though via the Pocket PC, it will base this on GMT so that the event moves relative to your Time Zone, but absolute with GMT.

This can get a bit confusing now if you create an appointment via the dektop PC which are whole day events that happen on a different Time Zone. Ths solution to this is to enter a start and end date with a time. This way it adjusts relative to your Time Zone but sticks to the absolute UTC/GMT value.

Mabuhay! ~ Carlo

[Kati Compton]

I think the upshot is that "there are ways to deal with it", but that we shouldn't have to.

Here's what we need, and most of this has been said in previous posts, but not all of them in the same post (I think).


o A drop down to select time zone for start & end times for appointments, defaulting to the PPCs "home" time zone so that it doesn't take longer to create appointments even with the added functionality. Note that the start and end times should have separate drop-downs for the case mentioned of recording flight info.

o When "all day" is selected for an appointment, provide another checkbox to allow the date to be fixed or floating with the time zone. Default should be user-defined probably, though I think *most* would prefer all-day appointments fixed.


I wasn't really complaining about the operation of the regular appointments, though this thread seemed to get derailed onto that while I've been traveling. ;) Like I said - I can deal with that, though I find the implementation sub-optimal. It's the treatment of all-day appointments that I think is completely wrong (at least for the way I think of them).

[Sven Johannsen]

And I want a check box that says do, or don't, screw with my times if I change time zones. I would probably still enter appointments as I do now. Lunch gets entered at Noon, regardless of where (TZ) I am going to have that lunch. Anything else makes me think I'm having Lunch at a weird time.

Wouldn't bother me to have a default check box for that on the timezone screen AND the opportunity to override that on a per appointment basis, for those rare entries, like conference calls, that it is worth having the system fix for me.

This is of course in addition to Katie's requirements. ;)

As someone said, let me make the system work like I do, don't make me work the way the system does.

[Pony99CA]

I think the upshot is that "there are ways to deal with it", but that we shouldn't have to.

Here's what we need, and most of this has been said in previous posts, but not all of them in the same post (I think).

o A drop down to select time zone for start & end times for appointments, defaulting to the PPCs "home" time zone so that it doesn't take longer to create appointments even with the added functionality. Note that the start and end times should have separate drop-downs for the case mentioned of recording flight info.

o When "all day" is selected for an appointment, provide another checkbox to allow the date to be fixed or floating with the time zone. Default should be user-defined probably, though I think *most* would prefer all-day appointments fixed.
I certainly agree with those suggestions, although I might have the drop-downs default to the currently selected time, either Home or Visiting. This assumes that, if the Visiting time is selected, you're more likely to be scheduling a new appointment in that time zone than one back home.

Also, if somebody changed one box, I might have the other move in sync, on the assumption that most events did not split time zones. The exception might be if the time zone drop downs already had different values, in which case the program could assume that was the user's choice.

Steve

[daS]

As long as this is ending up with a wish list:

How about an optional split screen view for the calendar that shows all appointment times in both "Home" and "Visiting" time zones simultaneously?

This combined with the calendaring functions of programs like CityTime (http://www.codecity.net/prodctppc.html) and we'd be set without extensive rewrites of the application.