Outlook 365 Work Hours and Location not allowing certain days to be selected

Question

In OWA the Work Hours and location schedule only allows for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to be selected and provides an error stating to "try again later" when selecting Thursday, and or Friday.

When running "Get-MailboxCalendarConfiguration" Exchange reports "WorkDays: Weekdays" which is not reflected in OWA.

When running "Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration" with "-Identity xxx -WorkDays Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday" or "-WorkDays Weekdays" (the default value) no errors are produced however no changes are reflected on the client side. I can confirm permissions are correct as I was able to set the WorkingHoursStart/EndTime attributes successfully and they were reflected on the client side.

When you have Work Hours set you see a location icon in the top right corner of selected Workdays on the calendar, when clicking that icon, it displays info on the schedule. One odd thing I have noticed is that the calendar shows the Work Hours and location icon for Thursday and Friday in the middle of May, BUT it's the OLD schedule, when you click on the icon it shows the Work Hours that were set for an OLD schedule, cant edit that anymore though because the "Work Hours and Location" is a global setting and can't be changed for specific dates, the schedule is just whatever is CURRENTLY set and displays that schedule into the future.

I believe this is an indication of an old schedule still being attached to the account and blocking the ability to add Thursday and Friday to the Work Hours settings because technically they are already occupied. I don't see ANY way of actually getting that information from Exchange online or removing the old data, especially since Exchange online is reporting incorrect data for the account currently.

All time zones have been confirmed and reset to the correct time zone; all calendar meetings were removed during testing with no results.

If you are seeing this then I FINALLY was able to get this posted, doesn't seem like this website works very well, I was stuck with the following error and there was no further recourse at that point other than to just keep trying to post this with varying tags and or accounts.

"We encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later. If this issue continues, please open a ticket at https://sitehelp.microsoft.com."

Answer 1

Hi Hoobs2,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum!

Have a good day and I hope you're doing well!

First of all, I completely empathize with the frustration you went through just to get this posted. It is incredibly annoying when the support platform itself errors out while you are already trying to solve a complex technical issue. I am glad you finally managed to get it through. 

Regarding the issue with your calendar, based on my research, this behavior indicates a backend synchronization issue. 

Essentially, your mailbox appears to be suffering from data corruption where the system is "stuck" between the old legacy settings and the new "Work Hours and Location" feature. It looks like there is old "trash" data or a "ghost schedule" lingering on Thursday and Friday that hasn't been cleared out properly. This corrupted data is effectively blocking the system from writing any new information to those specific days. 

Since this involves hidden corrupted items deep within the Exchange backend, standard PowerShell commands or client-side troubleshooting won't be able to remove it. 

As a forum moderator, I do not have the necessary permissions to access your organization's backend system or run the deep diagnostic tools required to purge this corrupted data. 

Therefore, the best course of action is to have a Microsoft Backend Engineer intervene. They have specific tools to access the mailbox store directly and purge the corrupted "Work Hours and Location" configuration item to force a reset. 

Please open a support ticket with Microsoft 365 Support so they can escalate this to the backend team. You can follow the guide to raise a ticket: Get support for Microsoft 365 for business

I hope this provides clarity on why the issue is persisting and points you toward the right fix. If you still have any concerns or questions, please feel free to reach out anytime. 

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Answer 2

It seems you are experiencing issues with setting work hours in Outlook Web App (OWA) for certain days, specifically Thursday and Friday, while the Exchange Online reports that the workdays are set to weekdays. Here are some steps and considerations that might help resolve this issue:

1. Check for Cached Data: Sometimes, old configurations may be cached in OWA. Try clearing your browser cache or accessing OWA from a different browser or incognito mode to see if the issue persists.
2. Verify Permissions: Even though you mentioned that permissions are correct, double-check that you have the necessary permissions to modify all aspects of the calendar settings. This includes ensuring that you are not restricted by any organizational policies.
3. Use PowerShell to Check Current Configuration: You can run the Get-MailboxCalendarConfiguration cmdlet to verify the current settings for the mailbox. Make sure that the output reflects your intended configuration.
4. Set WorkDays Again: If the settings are not reflecting correctly, you might want to try setting the workdays again using the Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration cmdlet. Ensure that you are using the correct syntax and that the identity is correctly specified.
5. Check for Conflicting Meetings: If there are any existing meetings or appointments on Thursday and Friday, they may be preventing you from setting those days as workdays. Ensure that there are no conflicting items in the calendar.
6. Contact Support: If the issue continues, it may be beneficial to open a support ticket with Microsoft, as they can provide more in-depth assistance and check for any backend issues that may not be visible to you.

If you suspect that old data is blocking the ability to set work hours, it may require intervention from Microsoft support to clear that data from the system.

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References:

• Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration
• Manage resource mailboxes in Exchange Online
• Resolve free/busy errors
• Outlook Calendar displays working hours as grey