For the benefit of the thread, I received the following notification from my Microsoft TAM this morning.
Microsoft continues to work with Apple regarding an issue where meeting attendees with iOS6 devices are sending cancellation requests to other attendees in the same meeting. The cancellation should be received only from an organizer.
Problem Definition
A meeting in attendee’s calendar no longer recognizes who is the meeting organizer.
Cause
This is also known as an “organizer hijack” and it only happens to attendees synchronizing their mailbox with iOS6 devices and who do not have a delegate. The organizer information in Outlook and Outlook Web App is not changed in this scenario. If actions are taken on an appointment item by using an iOS6 device, when “the organizer information is lost,” the device might incorrectly assume that the current mailbox user is the organizer. This particular user sends meeting updates and responses as if this user was the organizer.
Impact
This could lead to scenarios were an attendee sends a cancellation or update to all attendees when they did not organize the meeting.
Steps to Reproduce
- 1. A meeting organizer sends a meeting request in Outlook to an attendee who has a delegate.
- 2. Confirm that the meeting request synchronizes to the attendee’s device.
- 3. The attendee’s delegate accepts the meeting request in Outlook.
- 4. The meeting organizer sends a meeting update in Outlook to the attendee.
- 5. Confirm that the meeting update synchronizes to the attendee’s device.
- a. Select “Close” in the notification windows in iOS6
- b. Tap to select the meeting update in the Inbox but do not take any action
- 6. The attendee’s delegate accepts the meeting update in Outlook.
- 7. View attendee’s calendar in iOS6 after a sync.
Result
iOS6 shows the meeting in the calendar having no attendees or organizer. It looks exactly as a single appointment.
Additional Information
For Exchange 2010, collect the calendar diagnostic logging for the particular meeting
- a. Reference http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638102.aspx
- b. Sample command: Get-CalendarDiagnosticLog -Identity User1 -Subject "Meeting Subject Line"
- c. You should process the MSG files this creates with CalDiagViewer. This can be downloaded from http://toolbox/CalDiagViewer
- d. Review the timeline tab to determine the last modifier of the meeting request
Verify that automateprocessing is set to true for the mailboxes in question.
- Exchange 2010 - Get-CalendarProcessing mailbox_name | FL automateprocessing
- Exchange 2007 - Get-MailboxCalendarSettings mailbox_name | FL automateprocessing
Workaround
NOTE: These are long standing “best practices” recommendations for Outlook and Calendar best performance. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924470.
- 1. Update the delegate and manager pair to the same version of Microsoft Outlook. The version should be Outlook 2007 Service Pack 2 or a later version.
- 2. For Exchange Server 2007 and 2010, enable the Calendar processing on the server per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309185.
- 3. For managers, make sure that only the delegate receives the meeting requests and responses.
- 4. In addition, we recommend enabling the Exchange Calendar Repair Assistant (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee424432.aspx).
To configure this feature, use the following document:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee633469.aspx
If it is currently not enabled for all users, and you want to implement for a single user at a time for testing, use the following document:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee633473.aspx
If you have any questions regarding this information, I recommend creating a case with Microsoft support. Please note that this case is not free of charge if the issue is being caused by the third party OS.
