Calendar Questions

I posted this a couple of days ago and have not received any answers to my questions about the calendar.   It got filed in the the bug discussion file. Is this a bug or am I just not understanding how to post a calendar event?

Any help would be appreciated.

My original post is copied below....

Maybe I am missing something but I am having problems setting my calendar. I have not been able to find an answer in any of the forums.

I live in the PST zone.  Others in my group are all over the country.  When I set a time for a conference call, can I set it so that everyone can see it in their own time? 

I have set up a conference call set for 9am on the calendar.  It shows up as 9am on the calendar BUT on the Summary page, it shows up as 10am.

Is this a bug or is it just me not understanding how to set up the calendar and dealing with the time zones?

Baffled

Elizabeth, we'll take a look at this shortly and I'll let you know what we find.

I am asking the same Q here too Elizabeth. we have many time zones in Australia and I am running a site for the West from the East and need them to be able to see the calendar times in WA time not EST time.

I look forward to seeing the answer

I have the reverse problem.  We have several events taking place in one time zone.  When people access the site from a different time zone it shows a different time.  The event is in Chicago.  If the event is at noon, if you access the site from Los Angeles it says the event takes place at 10am.  If you access the site from New York it says the event begins at a different time.  This is a reunion not a conference call.  How can we simply say when each event takes place and have the time at that location be reflected on the page without changing?  The set up doesn't even allow for leaving the time blank and putting it below in the comments area.   

I set up my calendar and it shows up three times on my Home Events so my question is HOW do I delete the event in the calendar so it wont show up on the front page.

@Jieraniai -  To remove an event from the calendar:

1. Go to the SHARED tab. This will bring up your group calendar (month view).

2. Locate the day/year of the event you want to delete.

3. Click on the actual event (green box). The event will "open" to display details and links including "Edit," "Clone" or "Delete."  Of course, to remove the event you'll choose "delete."

Your calendar event is showing up 3 times in the Calendar module on your Summary page because the event appears multiple times on your shared calendar (having been entered individually multiple times, or entered once and by choosing the "recurring event" option).

Please let us know if you need any other assistance.

@Allan - RE: How can we simply say when each event takes place and have the time at that location be reflected on the page without changing? Our calendar does auto-adjust for based on the time zone setting of the viewer and we don't have an override for it. Sounds like something we may want to consider adding in the future. While it won't change the calendar time, you may want to try putting the time of the event along with the specific time zone in the description field of the event to see if that's useful.

@Allan,

You raise an interesting point. Another alternative would be to put it on the calendar as an 'All Day Event' then list the specifics of the time and the time zone in the comments. We'll investigate other possible alternatives.

I'd note that this issue was identified in the discussion topic "Calendar items and time shifting based on individual user time zone" created on Feb 28, 2008 and had some follow up through June of last year.

While I appreciate everyone's input and suggestions, I'm still baffled that it would be built-in to your program that the times of an event would automatically change based on people accessing the page from a different time zone.  If a New Years Eve party begins at 9 pm on Saturday in New York, and I accessed the site from Los Angeles it would automatically read that the event begins at 6 pm.  In the general sense, how is that helpful?  If I accessed the page from Australia, it would say the event began on Sunday.  According to the way it's set up, you may be getting these questions the day before I sent them.     

Allan,

If you set up a meeting at 1:00 pm - and you live on the East Coast, how would you like your West Coast members to think that the meeting starts at 1:00 pm pacific time.... and not show up for your meeting?

I can't see how it would ever be useful to not show events relative to the user's timezone.

As for your example above, frankly, in Australia the event does begin on Sunday.  How could it possibly be useful for members in Australia to believe that the event starts the day after it actually starts?  By the time they're ready for the event, it's already over.

The only exception to all of this would an "all day event" - similar to a holiday, etc., it shows up when it's that day for you, period.  So Halloween is simply on 10/31, no matter where you live.   Besides that, we would actually be giving incorrect times to events if we didn't show them relative to the user's timezone.

I see this from two vantage points.

If your setting up a telephone conference call then the current operation is advantageous since each person see's the start time in the context of their own time zone.  This saves the organizer from providing start times for each time zone or expecting each participant to adjust accordingly.

On the other hand, if your setting up an in-person meeting for persons coming from multiple time zones then the current operation can create confusion.  If I schedule a meeting to start at 8 am in Washington, DC is it really useful to folks in California to see that the meeting starts at 5 am?

I think the best approach would be to provide a check box that would allow for both needs to be met.  Presuming that the former should be the default.  In the case of the latter the relevant time zone needs to be clearly displayed.

Donivan,

Bingo!  You win the prize.  I'll buy you lunch.  How's noon.  Not your noon, my noon.   Seriously, you're absolutely correct.  The changing time frame is only valuable to somebody who finds it valuable.  And when you don't have an option to override it, it requires an explanation to all parties involved.

Thank you for taking the time to analyze it from both perspectives. 

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and ideas. We'll investigate this further, mindful not to introduce new problems while solving another. It will be important to keep Groupsites streamlined and simple to use for all level users and including the many groups whose members are in a single time zone.

In the meantime, for groups with members in multiple time zones, I'll suggest the following as a best practice when posting an "in person" meeting to your calendar:

Set the event as a "All Day" event, then include the event time and time zone in the "Event Name" field. This data will be visible to members from within the "Month" view of the calendar. Also include the event start and end time, along with the time zone where the event is taking place, in the event details area. This information will be viewable to members when they click on the event.