Monthly recurrence question

[Robert Floyd]

I recently returned to Entourage 2004 when the new update added Spotlight
searching (the missing link for me). One question on recurring tasks: I want
to create a task that recurs on the fifth Sunday of each month. The drop
down only shows first, second, third and fourth. These are the only choices
for just about all recurrences, which makes things awkward for such drop
down choices as weekday, weekend day, and a specific day (such as 5th
Sunday).

Is this a feature or a bug?

TIA,
Robert Floyd
Durham, NC

 

[Andy Ruff]

Can you use the "Last" setting the current recurrence pattern options? In
what cases do you need the 5th but not the last?

-Andy

I recently returned to Entourage 2004 when the new update added Spotlight
searching (the missing link for me). One question on recurring tasks: I want
to create a task that recurs on the fifth Sunday of each month. The drop
down only shows first, second, third and fourth. These are the only choices
for just about all recurrences, which makes things awkward for such drop
down choices as weekday, weekend day, and a specific day (such as 5th
Sunday).

Is this a feature or a bug?

TIA,
Robert Floyd
Durham, NC

--
Andy Ruff
MacBU Program Management
Entourage Weblog: http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/

This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

I recently returned to Entourage 2004 when the new update added Spotlight
searching (the missing link for me). One question on recurring tasks: I want
to create a task that recurs on the fifth Sunday of each month. The drop
down only shows first, second, third and fourth. These are the only choices
for just about all recurrences, which makes things awkward for such drop
down choices as weekday, weekend day, and a specific day (such as 5th
Sunday).

Is this a feature or a bug?

TIA,
Robert Floyd
Durham, NC

It looks like it's a limitation of the recurrence model. I'm not sure if
that's down to MS or some RFC. It's not possible to set up a 5th day
recurrence pattern by script either - it automatically changes to a daily
recurrence pattern.

It would be possible to write a script to calculate every 5th Sunday and
copy an event to each occurrence of the 5th Sunday, but this would be quite
a bit of work.

 

[Robert Floyd]

I need to schedule events that only happen on 5th Sundays (which only occurs
four times a year, typically). Hence, "last" won't work for me, as it will
create an event every month.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

As Barry says, almost, that's not possible in the "iCal" RFC for recurrence
patterns. The reason is that it's not _regular_ (monthly, weekly, etc.): it
skips some out. You'll notice that the same is true for 31st, 30th, 29th of
the month too. Although you can set those, they will default to "last" when
the chosen day-of-month doesn't exist. If you choose 31st, it doesn't skip
months which have no 31st, it makes it the 30th for all months except
February which will be 28th, or 29th in leap years. The primary
characteristic of all these "monthly" schedules is that they recur every
month - or every 2 months, or every 3 months, if you set that criterion too.
You cannot set a criterion which does not exist for some months without it
falling back to a default.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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[Robert Floyd]

Thanks for the insight, Paul. I understand the reasoning behind, but it
would be a nice little enhancement to make recurring dates smarter. But that
definitely is a low priority enhancement.