RIT Microsoft Exchange and daylight-saving time changes in 2007

Impact

The daylight-saving time change has had and will have an impact on RIT’s Microsoft Exchange environment, specifically for calendaring. While the time difference amounts only to an hour, it affects a large number of computers, software applications, and connected devices used in the daily business of the Institute:

personal account calendars, whether viewed from Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage, or Microsoft Outlook Web Access
resource account calendars for schedulable shared resources like conference rooms, projectors, and so on
Public Folder calendars, which may be used for departmental purposes
synchronized devices, such as RIM BlackBerry, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and Palm OS handhelds.

We expect that the impact will be limited to that data saved during or scheduled for the new extended periods of daylight-saving time:

between March 11, 2007 and April 1, 2007
between October 28, 2007 and November 4, 2007.

Consult the RIT Microsoft Exchange and daylight-saving time changes in 2007 page for collected information related to the Exchange system.

The extended daylight-saving time period is:

between March 11, 2007 and April 1, 2007
between October 28, 2007 and November 4, 2007.

To minimize confusion during the extended DST period beginning in March, Microsoft also suggests following these additional steps when working with your RIT Exchange calendar:

When a meeting is organized during the extended DST period, write the correct meeting time in the subject line or the body of the message. For example: “Project planning meeting—8:30 a.m.”
Consider any calendar items in the extended DST period to be suspect. If you are not sure, verify the correct time with the organizer.

In addition, you may want to post an all-day event — repeating each day through the extended daylight-saving time period and marked with the free/busy status of "Free" — to your calendar to remind yourself of the extended daylight-saving time period.

Background

To a great extent, RIT is dependent on Microsoft for remedies. Microsoft is continuing software development efforts directed at the daylight-saving time change. In addition, we rely upon its advice, as the vendor for this system. Of special note:

Microsoft has introduced a number of updates to their Windows operating systems and the Exchange server software. They have also produced utilities to assist in updating date and time-related data, such as calendars, in Outlook and Exchange mailboxes.
RIT staff have participated in several Microsoft Webcasts to obtain the latest advice and guidance from the company, in order to proceed in the most suitable direction for the entire campus.

The ongoing development and changing advice have complicated the situation. There are also several dependencies, including some that are specific to campus. We have tried to approach the problems cautiously, taking into account feedback from around the Institute, while clearly understanding that the countdown clock is running.

After considering all of these factors, we have proactively:

patched the operating system software on RIT’s Microsoft Exchange servers
patched the versions of Microsoft Exchange 2003 running on those servers
requested that all faculty, staff, and students update their Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh systems (or have systems administrators and IT staff update them), both at work and home, because the updates to client computers are critical to our overall readiness

You should only notice discrepancies — if any — in the time of events scheduled during the extended daylight-saving time period:

between March 11, 2007 and April 1, 2007
between October 28, 2007 and November 4, 2007.

When it comes to existing RIT Exchange calendar data, it does not matter whether or not your computer and Exchange calendar applications (see Microsoft Windows computers and Apple Macintosh computers) are fully patched. You may be fully patched, but some events can still be displayed an hour later than intended.

If your computer is fully patched, new events you create in the extended daylight-saving time period should be saved to the RIT Exchange servers correctly.

Unfortunately, no automated tool can fix all events if they continue to appear incorrectly in your calendar, even after your system has been patched.

The Microsoft Time Zone Update tool automates the process of “rebasing” events in Exchange calendars. This goes beyond updating operating systems and applications, and attempts to correct already-saved calendar data. It is available in editions that can work on all of an organization’s Exchange accounts, and another that can be run by individuals.

Exchange calendar events whose times are incorrect during the extended daylight-saving time period can also be corrected manually. Based on our testing, we believe manual corrections to be the preferred method.

After extensive testing of the Microsoft-supplied Time Zone Update Tool, ITS has decided not to run it globally across the RIT Exchange environment. We have only found it effective in a limited set of cases which we do not believe reflects the campus today.

While individuals may choose to run the tool and Organizational Unit (OU) administrators may choose to deploy the Outlook version of it (especially if their environments match the limited set of cases where the tool is effective), ITS does not generally recommend using it to rebase Outlook calendars. Instead, we recommend patching the client operating system and applications, and manually correcting calendar events afterwards. This allows the most control.

This decision is due to the inordinate number of incorrect adjustments in meetings the utility made during our testing. Even under the most favorable circumstances — involving fully-patched Microsoft Windows XP systems, running Microsoft Outlook 2003 — 40% of the meetings moved by the utility were not moved to the correct time.

When tested with some unpatched systems the utility’s effectiveness degraded further. And, when tested with fully-patched Apple Macintosh systems using the latest Microsoft Entourage 2004 Exchange client, all of the meetings moved by the utility were moved in error.

Even though ITS will not run the tool, we must stress that patching your own computer is critical, particularly if you use the RIT Exchange calendar and plan to manually correct your own events.

Platforms and devices

Even with all of the prerequisite software updates applied as described below, some calendar data in a Microsoft Exchange account may still be off by an hour during the extended daylight-saving time period. This generally happens because the events were saved from an unpatched system. Please confirm the time of your own calendar events and of those you have received as invitations; once your system is fully updated, we urge you to make manual corrections to individual events.

Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Windows must be updated, as per the guidance on our Microsoft Windows systems and daylight-saving time changes in 2007 page.

As long as Microsoft Windows is up-to-date, Microsoft Outlook does not need additional updates.

Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Entourage

Mac OS X must be updated, as per the guidance on our Apple Macintosh systems and daylight-saving time changes in 2007 page.

For compatibility with these DST changes on your Exchange calendar on Mac OS X, you must additionally upgrade Microsoft Entourage 2004 to version 11.3.3 or newer. Entourage 2004 is part of Microsoft Office 2004.

There are no DST updates available for Microsoft Entourage v.X or earlier, and Microsoft has informed us that older versions of Entourage will not be updated.

Even with the latest version of Microsoft Entourage 2004, you may notice that Exchange calendar events during the period between March 11, 2007, and April 1, 2007 are displayed with an incorrect time. ITS will be announcing additional details about this shortly.

Microsoft Windows Mobile

Microsoft Windows Mobile devices must be updated, as per the guidance on our Microsoft Windows Mobile devices and daylight-saving time changes in 2007 page.

RIM BlackBerry

RIM BlackBerry devices must be updated, as per the guidance on our RIM BlackBerry devices and daylight-saving time changes in 2007 page.

Palm OS

Palm handheld devices must be updated, as per the guidance on our Palm devices and daylight-saving time changes in 2007 page.

Updating calendar data

You should only notice discrepancies — if any — in the time of events scheduled during the extended daylight-saving time period:

between March 11, 2007 and April 1, 2007
between October 28, 2007 and November 4, 2007.

If your computer is fully patched, new events you create in the extended daylight-saving time period should be saved to the RIT Exchange servers correctly.

Unfortunately, no automated tool can fix all events if they continue to appear incorrectly in your calendar, even after your system has been patched.

With automation

Even though ITS will not run the tool, we must stress that patching your own computer is critical, particularly if you use the RIT Exchange calendar and plan to manually correct your own events.

Manually

To fix existing events manually, you should:

Verify that your computer is fully patched (see Microsoft Windows computers and Apple Macintosh computers). This is a prerequisite.
Review events in your calendar(s) to verify whether or not they are displayed at the intended time. We recommend checking events in your full calendar client, such as Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Entourage, and also with Outlook Web Access. Take responsibility for checking:

Your own individual Exchange calendar
Any additional calendars you have created in your own Exchange account
Calendars for which you are a delegate
Resource account calendars — for shared, bookable resources like conference rooms, projectors, and so on — for which you are responsible
Public Folder calendars you may have created or have access to.

Update events that display incorrectly. Be sure to do this only from a fully-patched computer — even if you are using Outlook Web Access in a Web browser.

For any standalone events on your calendar — or posted directly to other calendars, such resource account or Public Folder calendars — move them to the correct time with drag and drop, or by editing the details of the calendar event.
For events you have organized by sending out invitations, correct the time and send out updated invitations. You may also delete the events scheduled during the extended daylight-saving time period, and send new invitations for a rescheduled meeting. Invitations and updates alert the other attendees that the meeting time has changed.
For events scheduled by others, ask the organizer if he or she can send an updated invitation with the correct time, after his or her computer has been fully patched to understand the new DST rules.

Summary

To summarize:

The campus-wide RIT Exchange system has already been updated to support the new daylight-saving time transition — but this alone is not enough to ensure that the calendars in that system are correct during the extended daylight-saving time periods:
- between March 11, 2007 and April 1, 2007
- between October 28, 2007 and November 4, 2007.
Computers, software, and devices used by individuals to access Exchange for calendaring must be updated — while this is a prerequisite, it also does not by itself ensure that calendar data is entirely correct (as listed on the main Daylight-saving time changes in 2007 page)
ITS, in conjunction with other support providers around campus, has made the final decision to not run Microsoft’s Time Zone Update Tool on all RIT Exchange accounts
Individuals should confirm that events in calendars for which they are responsible are scheduled at the expected times throughout the extended daylight-saving time period, and correct them manually if they are not
Above all else, individuals should check with meeting organizers to confirm the times for any meeting invitations scheduled during the extended daylight-saving time period.