Exchange Calendar Invites Reverting to Tentative After Accepting

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Exchange Calendar Invites Reverting to Tentative After Accepting

*Users With iPhone ActiveSync, Outlook Clients, and Outlook Delegates:*

I've found that Microsoft Exchange users with Outlook delegates are experiencing an issue where their accepted calendar events are reverting to tentative on their Outlook client after their iPhone synchronizes via ActiveSync. The issue stops if the iPhone is powered off or if the ActiveSync option to sync the calendar is powered off. Even if you go to Outlook and manually accept the meeting, it will revert to tentative within seconds.

If you are experiencing this or a very similar issue, try the following:

1- Check the delegate settings in Outlook.
2- See if the main account user is sending the calendar invites only to the delegate.
3- If it is, change it to send the invites to both delegate and main account user. (test again)

The above seemed to work for me.

It seems like the message type changes depending on the delegate settings on Exchange or Outlook and the iPhone doesn't recognize the message format as a calendar event. If it doesn't work, please let me know as I'm experiencing the above and would like to gather as much information as I can and as many ideas/options as I can test.

Thanks!

iPhone 3.01 on Apple Mac Pro (Xeon), Mac OS X (10.5.7), Windows Vista (Bootcamp)

Posted on Aug 4, 2009 2:44 PM

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Answer 1

NigelC

Level 1

49 points

Aug 5, 2009 9:54 AM in response to A. Tous

I'm experiencing the same thing, and I have no delegate configured in Outlook...

For some reason one meeting I accept in Outlook reverts to Tentative the moment my iPhone is on the network, and the Calendars is set to "ON" in the mail account settings.

Disabling Calendars stopped the issue. Re-enabling Calendars after that seems to have fixed the issue for the moment. What was odd is that the meeting was showing as Accepted on the iPhone Calendar... I even re-accepted it from there to see if it would fix the issue while it was happening... it didn't.

Add this to the unreliable Calendar sync I'm experiencing with 3.0, and Exchange calendaring is becoming too risky to use. I've already missed one meeting because it wasn't being reflected on my iPhone, and have had to resort to toggling Calendar OFF and ON to force a delete and re-pull of all Calendar events during the day. Hardly a good/scalable approach...

And, yes, I've logged a bug report... for what its worth.

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Answer 2

A. Tous Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 5, 2009 11:58 AM in response to A. Tous

*This is a detailed description of the problem my users are experiencing:*

Currently affects all iPhone users with iPhone ActiveSync, Outlook 2007 with Delegates Connected to Exchange 2007 Servers.

iPhone 3.0+ users are experiencing an issue where their calendar invitations, after accepted (and marked as busy) by their delegates are reverting (almost instantly) to tentative status on their Outlook 2007 email client. If the mailbox owner accepts the invitation again, the Outlook 2007 Calendar event will revert once again to tentative as soon as the iPhone syncs with the Exchange server.

The above issue stops if the iPhone is powered off or if the ActiveSync option to sync the calendar is powered off.

This issue starts happening after and only when their iPhone synchronizes the calendar with Exchange via ActiveSync and only when it's an invitation from a third party (either externally or within our domain), it does not happen when creating events by the delegate or the mailbox owner.

I was able to partially fix the Outlook 2007 Calendar events reverting to tentative by changing the user's delegate settings from sending invitations only to the delegates to sending the invitations to both the delegate and the mailbox owner.

However, fixing the Outlook 2007 client side now brakes how the iPhone receives and manages the invitations. Now, even if a delegate receives and accepts the meeting invites on behalf of the mailbox owner, the iPhone calendar doesn't recognize the the meeting has been accepted and the only way to put it on the iPhone's calendar is to manually accept the request from the iPhone Calendar's Invitations List (defeating the purpose of having an assistant with delegate rights).

The above has been also reported on the Apple's Product Feedback site for iPhone devices:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

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Answer 3

wdilly

Level 1

0 points

Aug 19, 2009 11:32 AM in response to A. Tous

I would like to point out that in our environment this problem only starts happening after iPhone OS 3.0.1 is installed. 3.0 doesn't seem to have this problem.

We are running Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007.

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Answer 4

SMFX

Level 1

0 points

Aug 25, 2009 2:09 PM in response to A. Tous

We have been experiencing similar issues with our updated iPhone users. This is with Exchange 2003 and ISA 2006. Both have been Service Packed and applicable patches (as far as I can find). Here is the details:

The issues arise from iPhone users with Delegates and Exchange. It only seems to happen sporadically, but the following issues have been narrowed down to the basic symptoms:

· The user has an iPhone running version 3.0.1
· The user has a delegate that organizes and/or accepts meetings on their behalf
· The user is synchronizing their Inbox and Calendar to the iPhone

What we have been able to determine happens:

1. The user's delegate initiates a meeting or responds to a meeting on the user's behalf
2. The iPhone does not recognize the meeting and/or its format and removes the changes from its Calendar
3. The iPhone synchronizes the updates to the Exchange server (either changing its state to 'Tenative' (not accepted) or deletes it)
4. This change is then replicated to the Outlook client as well.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated, because I have yet to find any.

Thank you!

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Answer 5

A. Tous Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 25, 2009 2:28 PM in response to SMFX

Hello SMFX,

I found a tiny workaround, it is not really a fix for this issue but a small relieve for the user and the delegate. In addition, after performing this change, new calendar events will work properly but old ones already in the calendar will still behave the same way.

From the iPhone user or Exchange mailbox owner’s Outlook client, change the delegate settings:

+Deliver meeting requests addressed to me and responses to meeting requests where I am the organizer to:+ *My delegates and me*

Make sure that “My delegates only” is not selected. This is what changes the calendar message type and breaks the interaction between the mailbox and iPhone.

Hope this helps!

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Answer 6

Sep 1, 2009 4:12 PM in response to A. Tous

The issue we are noticing here is if a recurring monthly meeting is created for every 3rd weekday, that after the first meeting every month thereafter does not sync to the iPhone. Can anyone verify if Apple will create a bug fix for this?

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Answer 7

Seanf12

Level 1

0 points

Sep 8, 2009 8:35 AM in response to A. Tous

I am having the same exact issues, with users who are on both Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007. Has anyone verified with Apple support that this in fact is some sort of bug with 3.0.1 and above?

Thanks!

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Answer 8

Sep 15, 2009 8:25 AM in response to Seanf12

Has anyone seen resolution (or continuation) of this "issue" since the 3.1 update?

I've 2 users/1 delegate (receives ALL meetings) that absolutely can NOT (don't ask ;o) deviate from the current configuration and due to a stoopid load this week/month for all involved (OK, mainly ME!), there hasn't been time for testing...

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Answer 9

MPower

Level 1

43 points

Sep 17, 2009 7:55 PM in response to Caver Dave

Do your Outlook clients have the "Delete meeting request from inbox when responding" disabled?

Have the delegates DELETE the original meeting request from within Outlook. This will trigger a change to the calendar invite and make it appear as accepted on the device.

Bug report filed with Apple also...months ago.

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Answer 10

denobin

Level 1

0 points

Oct 14, 2009 9:06 PM in response to A. Tous

We are using Exchange 2003 with the latest serivce packs, clients have Vista sp2 with Outlook 2007 sp1. The affected users do not have delegates. As long as the iPhone is not syncing the calendar, the meetings show as busy. When iPhone calendar is on, meetings revert to tentative within a few minutes. None of the solutions presented in any of these forums have worked. Has Apple or MS responded to anyone with any information whatsoever?

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