E-mail Meeting Scheduling (Outlook?) messages have the wrong time

July 22, 2014 2:50 PM

I use Hotmail. A business partner sends me a meeting scheduling message, I'm not sure what they are whether it's an Outlook thing, but they have the time and date of the meeting, along with "Accept", "Decline" check boxes. The trouble is the time's wrong.

e.g. I get a msg and it says 10:30 am, but my partner says no, he set it for 13:30. So I'm guessing its some kind of bad time zone setting. I have checked my own time zone setting in Hotmail and its correct. What exactly should my partner check? And how does he do it?

posted by storybored to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

If you are receiving the invite via webmail (ie, if there is not a mail client intermediary displaying your hotmail messages) then the issue is your partner's setup.

How Outlook handles time zones for meeting requests

Add, remove, or change time zones
posted by KokuRyu at 2:54 PM on July 22, 2014

Outlook's time zone settings don't always play well with other services, I've found. Certainly work with your partner to find a solution, but I'd also recommend you both make it a regular practice to put the time of the meeting and what time zone is being referred to in the body of the message (and if you know what time zone others are in, I'd put what time the meeting is for them, too - just be sure you know how daylight savings works for their location!). I don't know if it's considered an industry best practice, but it has certainly avoided at least a few missed meetings in my career.
posted by solotoro at 2:14 AM on July 23, 2014