We have two Exchange 2003 servers, our primary server and a front-end server that hosts Outlook Web Access (OWA). When I open my boss' calendar via Outlook 2007 (from my Outlook client as well as hers) I see the event scheduled for 10:30 am. When I open her calendar via Outlook Web Access, the same event is scheduled for 4:30 am.
I don't understand Exchange well-enough to imagine how this is possible. If you have any ideas why this could be happening, I greatly appreciate it. I'd also very much appreciate any insight you have to how this could be possible. There must be some cached data on the front-end server that causes the calendar entry to appear at a different time, I suppose. Any insight into how Exchange manages that cache and where I could look for an issue would be very helpful.
Thank you!
Best Answer
This is almost certainly a time zone issue in OWA.
Outlook adopts the time zone of the host operating system; both of your client machines are configured for the same time zone, so the appointment is displayed at the same time on both machines in Outlook.
Outlook Web Access can't make the assumption that the client machine where the web browser is running is in the same time zone as the server, so the Outlook Web Access client provides a user-configurable option where the user can set their current time zone. This information is stored for each user.
Sign in to Outlook Web Access, navigate to the Options page and select the Date & Time Formats section to check the current time zone setting. Select the correct time zone and click the Save button and you should be able to avoid showing up to meetings four hours early!
Note that these options in Outlook Web Access are stored per-user, so the user experiencing the problem will need to check and modify this setting.
We currently use Exchange 2007; Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2007 calls this Options section "Regional Settings" instead of "Date & Time Formats" but it works the same.
I believe that users are prompted to configure their time zone the very first time they sign in to Outlook Web Access; however, most users of Outlook Web Access aren't aware of this setting, so if is set incorrectly or needs to be changed, most people don't even know to look for it...