repeated meeting changed after some meetings were deleted.

[Guest]

Please help!
1. In my Outlook 2003 I had programmed a repeated meeting - daily at 9.00 -
1 hour long - no final date.
2. 1 week later (as 7 meetings already took place) I had manually DELETED
THREE future meetings (meetings number 9, 10 and 11).
3. 20 meetings after the first programming step I decided to define the final
date of the meetings' series (changing the "no final date defined" option to
"stop after 30 occasions").
4. Outlook accepted the change, but also RESURRECTED THOSE 3 meetings, which
were deleted.

What can I do to prevent Outlook 2003 from resurrecting those manually
deleted meetings?
Thank you.

 

[Brian Tillman]

1. In my Outlook 2003 I had programmed a repeated meeting - daily at
9.00 - 1 hour long - no final date.
2. 1 week later (as 7 meetings already took place) I had manually
DELETED THREE future meetings (meetings number 9, 10 and 11).
3. 20 meetings after the first programming step I decided to define
the final date of the meetings' series (changing the "no final date
defined" option to "stop after 30 occasions").
4. Outlook accepted the change, but also RESURRECTED THOSE 3
meetings, which were deleted.

What can I do to prevent Outlook 2003 from resurrecting those manually
deleted meetings?

Since recurring events are single entries in the calendar, with events
subsequent to the original being calculated and not actually stored. When
you modify a particular occurrence, you are storing an exception in the
event record that Outlook uses to suppress or alter that particular
occurrence. You're not actually removing an item from the calendar, since
there is only one item for the entire series. By changing the end date
you're modifying the series and Outlook regenerates all occurrences,
eliminating any of the exceptions in the record. You cannot prevent it.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I believe that this is a serious flaw in Outlook's Calendar. It's
outrageous that one cannot change a recurring event just going
forward, while leaving the history intact. An early version of Palm's
calendar which I used years ago was more sophisticated than this!
Every time you modified a recurring event, a screen popped up asking
whether you wanted to change all occurrences, all future occurrences,
or just one occurrence.

I've used calendaring systems like that as well.

Don't the Microsoft people understand that the vast majority of times
that one would change the time or place of a recurring event, that
one would be making that change for the future, not the past?

It's hard to tell wha Microsoft people understand and don't understand
without asking them, but it seems reasonable to me that one might want to
change a recurring event without changing past history.

 

[Guest]

I have been searching for a solution to his myself for quite some time. I'm
disappointed to see that when I change the time of a meeting to 8:30 a.m.
from 9:30 a.m. GOING FORWARD ONLY... that all the previous meetings will
change, too. Even though the previous meetings occurred at 9:30 a.m.

 

[Guest]

I think I may have found a solution. I pulled up the recurring meeting and
changed the "end date" to this week. I then "sent update." I set up a new
meeting beginning next week with the new time. It looks like the old
meetings are still there w/ the original time and the new invite beginning
next week w/ the new time.

Does this sound like it will work for any of you?

 

[Brian Tillman]

I think I may have found a solution. I pulled up the recurring
meeting and changed the "end date" to this week. I then "sent
update." I set up a new meeting beginning next week with the new
time. It looks like the old meetings are still there w/ the original
time and the new invite beginning next week w/ the new time.

Does this sound like it will work for any of you?

As you discovered, recurring entries are single entries, not multiple ones,
and changing a recurring entry in such a way that Outlook will regenerate it
will change both the past and future display (since it's really only one
item). I think you've found the best solution.