Calendaring Issues in Outlook

• Multiple Versions of Outlook - It is imperative that the owner and the delegate both run the same version of Outlook, with the same patch version. For example, there will be problems with calendaring if the executive is running Outlook 2003 and the assistant is using Outlook 2007, or even if both they’re both on Outlook 2007 but one is up to date with patches and the other is not.
• Multiple Delegates Working on the Same Calendar - In many organizations it is common for an executive to delegate responsibility to more than one assistant. Sometimes Outlook just seems to become unstable when there are multiple delegates. Other times problems are caused when two different people edit the same meeting either simultaneously (which theoretically shouldn’t be possible, but seems to happen anyway) or at different times.
  
  Trouble shooting this issue can be tricky, as the problems often only happen intermittently. The best thing to do is to remove all except one of the delegates, and see if this fixes the problem.
• Meetings Accepted from Calendar Instead of from Inbox- When a meeting invitation arrives, Outlook will tentatively put this meeting on the calendar while the invitation is still in the Inbox. Ideally invitations are responded to from the Inbox; doing so automatically adds the accepted meeting to the calendar and then deletes the invitation from the Inbox. But if the invitation is accepted or rejected from the calendar view, it is not automatically deleted from the Inbox - it stays there.
  
  What sometimes happens at that point is that the person’s assistant sees the invitation in the Inbox, doesn’t realize that a response has already been given, and responds to it in some way from the Inbox. Because the invitation was already responded to, this causes problems. A previously accepted meeting can be deleted, a person can appear to be double-booked, etc.
  
  Trouble shooting this problem involves talking to the person about how he is accepting meetings, and providing user training as necessary.
• Meeting Updates Accepted Out of Order - If there are two updates for the same meeting, and you accept the most recent one first and then go back and either accept or decline the earlier meeting request, things will get messed up. The meeting can disappear (especially if you decline the older version of the invitation after accepting the newer version) or reappear (if the opposite situation were the case).
  
  Once again, trouble shooting this issue involves user interview and training. If there are multiple emails pertaining to the same event, you should respond to the most recent one and then delete (rather than reject) the rest.
• Offline Devices Not Being In Synch - Sometimes a delegate accepts a meeting invitation, and then the owner rejects the same invitation from his hand held mobile device while he’s off line, before he’s synched back up. Needless to say, this causes problems.
  
  As with the previous two issues, fixing this involves user interview and training.

1. Make sure the latest service packs or hot fixes for calendaring have been applied to the server.
2. Start Outlook in “safe mode,” to see if the problem is being caused by plug-ins.
3. Determine if the calendar owner has delegates.
4. Check if the owner and all delegates are using the same version and patch version of Outlook.
5. If there is more than one delegate, remove all except one.
6. Talk to the owner and delegates. Determine if invitations are being responded to from the Calendar view instead of from the Inbox. Ask how they handle multiple updates for the same meeting. And check to see if the owner sometimes responds to meetings while offline, before being synched back up to the delegates.