iCalendar and POP3: Calendar Advanced Options (Meeting Requests)

G

Greg @ TPI

We're having a problem that I fear will not get resolved without an expensive
call to Microsoft, but here it is for you to consider:

Receiving Outlook meeting requests from an outside company - the requests
arrive as plain text with no accept/decline buttons. After extensive testing,
the ONLY way we've found to fix this is to check the "When sending meeting
requests over the Internet, use iCalendar format." checkbox under Preferences
--> Calendar Options in Outlook 2003. BUT, the ONLY way to make this checkbox
check-able is have a POP3 mail account created in Outlook. Otherwise the
checkbox is always unchecked and greyed-out, and if it is uncheckable, there
is no way to receive meeting requests other than in plain text.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If we create a POP3 account in Outlook
(pointing to gmail, yahoo) the checkbox no longer is greyed-out and can be
checked.

Without having to create Internet email accounts within Outlook for all of
our users, is there another way to UN-GREY-OUT the "When sending meeting
requests over the Internet, use iCalendar format." checkbox?
 
S

Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]

This doesn't make any sense, I'm afraid. That option has no effect on how what received iCalendar items look like (and should also have no effect on sending meeting requests through an Exchange 2000/2003 server).

What would be useful would be to see a raw incoming message with the iCalendar message part.
 
G

Greg @ TPI

Exactly, it doesn't make sense to us either, which is why I'm posting it
here. Meeting requests will not work coming from an outside company unless
that checkbox is checked. By default it is greyed-out. To remove the gray and
check the checkbox, we have to create a new POP3 email account in Outlook.
There is nothing anywhere that explains this, and as I feared, it is even too
weird a problem for these forums.
 
D

Diane Poremsky [MVP]

Let me make sure I understand.... when someone outside the company (such as
me) sends you a meeting request, you will receive it as plain text, unless
you add a POP account to your profile?

It makes no sense to me. The text in the body indicates it's being sent as
plain text, not RTF and the format is controlled by the sender and sender's
mail server.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/
 
S

Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]

Can you get your hands on the raw incoming message?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
F

Frank Schirrmeister

I have the same problem in reverse. Meetings sent from a machine with greyed
out icalendar setting arrive on my machine plain and are not recognized by
Outlook as a meeting (even though the option on the receiving end is set).

Here is a source.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.5.7226.0">
<TITLE>Canceled: Asia</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<!-- Converted from text/rtf format -->

<P><FONT FACE="Georgia">When: Monday, October 17, 2005 12:00 AM to Saturday,
October 22, 2005 12:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US &amp; Canada);
Tijuana.</FONT></P>

<P><FONT FACE="Georgia">*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*</FONT>
</P>
<BR>

</BODY>
</HTML>
 

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