Bulk-modify only future events of a recurring calendar event (i.e. "archive"/"freeze" past events).
It is helpful to have a record of past events/meeting as they happened.
Currently, modifying a recurring event (e.g. moving a team meeting from Tuesdays to Thursdays) will change all occurrences, past and future, which means the record of previous events is lost/not accurate.
When modifying a recurring event, users usually want to implement a change "from now on", so at the very least they should be given the option to modify (a) single event, (b) future occurrences, (c) all occurrences.
See Google calendar for implementation.
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26 comments
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JH
commented
It isn’t acceptable that in 2020, Microsoft still doesn’t have the ability to edit/delete only future instances of a recurring event/meeting series, without affecting any past instances that have taken place but had to be adjusted and don’t fit within only the recurring series framework. Those meetings are in the past and my calendar should be able to preserve the actual meeting times and details added into individual meetings when I want to change what is going to happen in the future. Google has had this functionality for over 5 years, where if I attempt to make a change to an event in a series, it prompts me to specify if I am requesting to make a change to:
- This event
- This and all following events
- All events in the series
This is something that really needs to be addressed as a simple fix to your calendar software without someone having to try and find a workaround or lose historical data. -
Susan White
commented
Nothing new to add to previous comments other than to support the suggestions. Clearly adding the option of 'modify only future appointments' would be very helpful. Seems almost critical if calendar is to be used in business environment.
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Diogo
commented
Allow user to update/delete only future instances of a recurrent meeting as oppose to update/delete all series. Maintaining the history on the calendar is essential. This would also resolve the problem when the user set up a meeting recurrence with no end date. I am confident many users will cancel the meeting at one point from that day forward but would like to keep the past entries on the calendar.
Hey - google calendar already has that feature for decades? Just need something simple implemented, like an option "update this and upcoming meeting in the series", in addition to the existing "update this only" and "update all series" options. -
Diogo
commented
Allow user to update/delete only future instances of a recurrent meeting as oppose to update/delete all series. Maintaining the history on the calendar is essential. This would also resolve the problem when the user set up a meeting recurrence with no end date. I am confident many users will cancel the meeting at one point from that day forward but would like to keep the past entries on the calendar.
Hey - google calendar already has that feature for decades? Just need something simple implemented, like an option "update this and upcoming meeting in the series", in addition to the existing "update this only" and "update all series" options. -
Lorraine
commented
I agree. It seems like I did nothing prior to lockdown as all recurring meetings were cancelled /moved to other time-slots. If I was in charge, ,I could still use the recurring option and end the meeting at a specific date, but now someone else managed the meetings. SO I either have a bunch of "cancelled meetings" in my calendar, or no record at all of having had these meetings.
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Katie
commented
It is insane that to make a change to a recurring meeting all past meetings are also changed/impacted. You lose reschedules, you lose agendas, you lose attachments. It's not ok. You need to be able to make a change to a recurring meeting and be ale to opt for "apply to all future meetings" while preserving all history of the series.
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Roger Millichamp
commented
If I create a series of recurring tasks and then need to change the start date of the entire series Outlook assumes I only want to change the date of the next occurrence of the task and leaves the rest of the series with the original start date. Some people may regard this as a bug
To take an example, I create a task with a start date of Sunday and an end date of Wednesday which occurs weekly. I then need to change the start date to Monday on the entire series and so edit the recurring task. After I make the change Outlook creates two tasks: (i) a single independent task with the start date changed to Monday, (ii) a recurring task starting the following week with the start date still set to Sunday. This means all the tasks except the first still have a start date of Sunday whereas they all need to be Monday. If you don’t follow this try implementing the example above and see what happens. It would be better if Outlook offered the choice to either change the next occurrence of the task or the entire series as it does when a recurring series of tasks is deleted.
This problem may also occur with recurring calendar entries, I haven’t checked.
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John Gillispie
commented
Yes. This would be an awesome feature!
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what for
commented
In calendar, when some of the series of an appointment are cancelled, all of them are cancelled instead of just the active ones.
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Anonymous
commented
The lack of this feature may cause me to move my calendar back to google. I hate to do this, because I really hate the fact that google mines all of my personal information to sell to their corporate clients. Which is why I moved to outlook.com. When I moved, I expected a bit of a learning curve, and that there would be features that were different. However, I still expected a functional application, with all of the basic calendar capabilities. This is a critical one, and it blows me away that it is missing.
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Anonymous
commented
When making a change to a recurring meeting invite (Subject, Time, Participants, Location, Recurrence, Cancellation, etc.), provide option to apply changes to JUST THIS occurrence, THIS AND ALL FUTURE occurrences or ALL occurrences.
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Susan
commented
One does wonder if Microsoft product team actually uses their product or if they consider how others use it. This feature is very basic and how I've used calendars even when they were paper-based!
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Susan
commented
Absolutely, please add this feature! In previous versions, you could change the Recurrence to stop future meetings, but the new version seems to ignore that and cancels all PAST meetings as well. For those of us who use our calendars as a diary, we don't want those past instances removed. Only the future ones cancelled. I'm not a fan of Google, but they do this right on their calendar app.
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Joe Barnet
commented
This is absolutely necessary. It should be a basic feature for a corporate email/calendar service. We moved to Outlook from Lotus Notes three years ago and Notes had this function for years before that.
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Paul Jones
commented
We need to be able to accept a recurring meeting but at a later date reject all future occurrences without losing all of the historic meeting occurrences.
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Daniel Pietschmann
commented
It is super important to get this feature as fast as possible. Actually it is a no go to not have it.
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Gera van Horne commented
appointments in a series: create possibility: this and subsequent appointments. Very difficult that the agenda changes the whole series
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Bhupesh Akkineni
commented
Outlook must provide the ability to modify a recurring meeting and only future events should be update.
Currently if i modify a recurring meeting i will be given 2 options "Just this one" or " The entire series" , i would suggest to have "Future Events/ Series" .
In the current scenario if i select " The entire series" and change time all my past events time is also updated and if i want to go back and see at what time i have done this meeting in the past system will show wrong information if the meeting time is recently changed. So there should be an option to modify Only Future events so that all my completed meetings are intact with the schedules.
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Marcus Macauley
commented
I'm amazed that Outlook in 2020 doesn't have this basic feature. As others have pointed out, Google Calendar has had it for years (and probably other services as well). And it's not like Microsoft hasn't received feedback about it. As one example, the question, "How do we delete or modify only future events with Outlook recurring events?" was posted to Microsoft Community in May 2018 and has already prompted 363 people to click "I have the same question":
I don't know why we bother giving feedback like this when Microsoft seems either unaware, indifferent, or unable to implement such basic and widely-requested usability features.
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Kerri Mahar
commented
Yes, I just wanted to add that Google calendar has had this feature for years. I see the point has already been made. It seriously blows my mind that Microsoft does not have it. But then, Microsoft seems to be going the wrong direction in a lot of things. It just is not the company it used to be.
