Trialling a MS 365 Business Basic account. Outlook's birthdays calendar offsets all dates by +1 :-(

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Trialling a MS 365 Business Basic account. Outlook's birthdays calendar offsets all dates by +1 :-(

Baboon

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#283814 13-Mar-2021 20:20

So, I've given up on Zoho Mail only a couple weeks after buying a subscription. It was too cheap, I guess, because boy are there some awful design issues.

Anyway - I moved on to a MS 365 Business Basic 30-day trial, yesterday. What can I say: it's MS and web Outlook. Clunky, corporate drone aesthetic, uninspiring. But it seems to work well. However today I noticed all my birthdays in the birthday calendar (the built in one that makes a calendar of birthdays from contact info) are displaying with dates offset my +1. So, if I enter a birthday for Sue of the 12th of July in her contact card, it displays on the 13th of July in Outlook's calendar, with the 13th as the date of her birthday in the event's details.

Missing people's birthdays is bad :-D Not something I want to have to blame MS for, heh. You'd think it would just me a wrongly set time zone, but nope - checked that. And a MS support rep watched me check that via LogMeIn. They have no idea what's wrong :-D But as I quipped to them, they've 28 days left to find a solution! Cause as minor as this issue might be, I can't be having that.

Anyone here have any ideas?

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#2673969 13-Mar-2021 20:22

My first guess would be timezone issues... have you had a look at this? How did you import the data and where did it come from?

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Baboon

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#2673971 13-Mar-2021 20:31

As I said, time zone issues were investigated. I've NZ time set correctly in Outlook settings and the Admin Centre.

If there's another time zone setting, neither myself or the MS rep are aware of it. But it absolutely does feel like a time zone issue!

As for where the birthdays came from - both from imported contacts (exported from Google Workspace contacts) and manually created new contacts in Outlook. All are offset +1 in the calendar, regardless.

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lucky015

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#2673983 13-Mar-2021 20:56

Timezone issues would be the only thing that makes sense for this type of issue, perhaps there is a timezone set for the individual events that need to be updated? or a setting about how much in advance/etc a reminder is issued? Perhaps a timezone issue with the source the content is being pulled from?

Baboon

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#2673989 13-Mar-2021 20:59

The birthdays calendar is automatically created by outlook.office.com. So, I've no control over it.

I just tested viewing the birthdays calendar in Outlook for Android, and there's no weird +1 offset occurring there. So, on the face of that limited evidence, it would appear to be a bug in outlook.office.com, not the underlying calendar.

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freitasm

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#2674042 14-Mar-2021 00:28

I would say the original data was wrong. I had that years ago when creating calendar items on Symbian devices and then exporting to Windows Mobile then syncing to Exchange. I had to manually update a lot of contacts.

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Baboon

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#2674062 14-Mar-2021 07:14

No, the dates are correct in the actual contact cards. First thing I checked, then time zones with web Outlook and locally in Windows. My contacts are also a mix of manually created and imported, since I'm testing out Outlook for web, after not having used it seriously for many years.

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Dynamic

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#2674782 15-Mar-2021 11:30

I'd encourage you to keep following up with Office 365 support.

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wally22

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#2674786 15-Mar-2021 11:43

Looking at this with interest. I have a similar issue (admittedly with other software/os) and have checked all of the timezone settings I can find.

Baboon

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#2674790 15-Mar-2021 11:56

Dynamic:
I'd encourage you to keep following up with Office 365 support.

Oh, I am. If they can't sort it, it will be an important factor in my decision whether to move forward with a paid sub and transition in my primary domain and data, or not.

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GregV

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#2674791 15-Mar-2021 11:56

Were the 'meeting hours' changed as well as the main time zone? If I go to change my time zone, I am prompted to update my meeting hours separately.

I've just checked my @live.com account, and my meeting hours are incorrect

Baboon

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#2674793 15-Mar-2021 11:58

My meeting hours time zone is also set to NZ time, yup.

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CYaBro

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#2674950 15-Mar-2021 14:45

If you make a brand new contact with a birthday, just as a test, does that also get +1'd?

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Baboon

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#2674966 15-Mar-2021 14:50

Yup. Also tried changing time zones to another one and back to NZ's, as well as disabling the birthdays calendar and re-enabling so Exchange rebuilds it. All the birthdays in the birthdays calendar still display offset +1 days.

It also happens with both imported contacts and brand-new contacts I create in Outlook.

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CYaBro

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#2674967 15-Mar-2021 14:53

Baboon: Yup. Also tried changing time zones to another one and back to NZ's, as well as disabling the birthdays calendar and re-enabling so Exchange rebuilds it. All the birthdays in the birthdays calendar still display offset +1 days.

It also happens with both imported contacts and brand-new contacts I create in Outlook.

I'd like to know how you get the Birthday's calendar to populate at all??! 🤣
When I add a birthday to any of my contacts it just shows in my own personal calendar on the correct day and the Birthdays one is completely empty.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Baboon

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#2674974 15-Mar-2021 15:03

Ummm... I just enabled the birthdays calendar (in Settings->Calendar->View, scroll to the bottom) and it populated itself *shrug*
I've noticed it can take anywhere from seconds to minutes to populate with my contact's birthdays.
I didn't know there was a way to have them show up elsewhere.

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."

- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

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