how to update recurring meeting in Outlook without losing history?

Question

I have recurring client appointments, which I edit if eg. there is a cancellation or a no-show. I need to keep this history.

If I want to reschedule Client X to a different time going forward, then my only option appears to be changing the end date of the recurring series and starting a new one. But that removes all changes made to earlier occurrences.

The only other "solution" seems to be downloading a csv, and uploading it again - what a palaver. Surely there must be an easier way to edit "all occurrences from this point onwards" as you can in the Google calendar?

I can see that this issue has been raised as far back as 2016 - what do we have to do to get it on the wishlist for the next upgrade to Outlook?

Come on Microsoft - Google can do this, so why can't you?

Ri

(Also curious why Outlook doesn't appear under the list of MS 365 & Office apps ??)

Answer 1

Here is the actual solution to this problem: use the web version of Outlook.

1. Browse to https://outlook.live.com/calendar
2. Right-click the element in your series you want to use for "this point onwards"
3. Click Edit
4. Click the second of the three choices offered:

This event

This and following events

All events in the series

Here's a screenshot (I couldn't get the image uploader to work) https://i.imgur.com/3wXBk71.png

And it works if you have added notes to prior events in the series.

Answer 2

Kia ora Abdal

What you describe is what I tried before. However, when I set the "end" date of the first series to today, if I have made changes to any of the previous occurrences in the series, I get this message:

In other words, simply ending the recurrence and starting a new series at a changed appointment time does NOT retain the previous history (which includes Cancels and No Shows). What can I do to avoid obliterating my clients' attendance history?

This is dead easy in the Google calendar, where you have the option of editing 1. this occurrence / 2. this occurrence and all subsequent ones (which doesn't change previous ones) / 3. the entire series. So if Google can do it, surely Microsoft can too. The flexibility of the Google calendar is why I have resisted using the Microsoft one until now, when I had to for work.

There used to be a "wishlist" that users could vote things on to for future updates. This would be way up there for me and, it seems, for a lot of other users - there are variations on the same question in the database going back to 2016 - that's 7 years ago!!

I get that this is the community forum, but how do we get this message across to the developers? The Google product is simply better and they need to up their game.

Ri

Answer 3

Kia ora Sneha

I set up a test recurring appointment, made some changes to some of it and then opened the entire series to make changes "from this point forward" as you suggested.

Unfortunately, I still get the same error message:

So whether I "end" one series and start a new one with changed details, or whether I open the whole series to make a change going forward, the specific history up to that point is deleted.

I looked at all 4 articles/posts you suggested and they don't add anything new to this, except that apparently the old Lotus Notes, as well as Google now, could do what Microsoft still can't seem to manage.

I will follow up with both Feedback and the UserVoice forum, because this same question in its various wordings has had hundreds of "I have the same question" votes going back to at least 2016. It's time for Microsoft to sort it out.

Ri

Answer 4

Surprised that two tech supports both got this wrong, and over such long period since first request... just tried the suggested method and like what Ri_ARCS reported, doing so reset all past meetings so history was lost. Not a huge deal in my case but it's extremely annoying TBH...

Answer 5

I agree with previous users. We MUST have a way to keep the history meeting of the previous recurrences when we change future recurrences. Microsoft has to find a way to change just the future meetings, without affecting the previous meetings. The ones done in the past should keep the date and time of their modification. It seems something not that hard to do, right? Sometimes we erase a meeting. Sometimes we reschedule a meeting for a different time. Sometimes the organizer of the meeting changes, and when we want to delete the future meetings (because that person left the company for instance) we lose all the previous meetings. All my colleagues have the same problem. It's very important in a project and a company to keep track of when the meetings were held. It's very frustrating. PLEASE FIX this issue.