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Time Zone Troubleshooting Guide

  • 23 October 2023
  • 23 replies
  • 5065 views
Time Zone Troubleshooting Guide

You’ve sent out your Calendly to book or perhaps you’ve just scheduled the perfect time on someone else’s Calendly. And ding! The confirmation email arrives, but not with the time you were expecting. You could have sworn you’d picked noon your time? Why is it saying 1pm? 4pm? Why is it saying the wrong time?!

In this article, we’re going to troubleshoot why sometimes appointments and confirmations don’t appear to line up and what to do either as the invitee/attendee or the host.

 

Who is this article for? All users, regardless of plan type or role on plan, are impacted by time zones. This article is for all Calendly users.

 

How are time zones detected?

Whether you’re the host or invitee/attendee, time zones are detected by checking your device settings and synced calendars. You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Calendly and time zones here.

The time zone displayed on the booking page is the one that will be shown in any email confirmation or reminder received from Calendly. This means that if an invitee schedules 1pm PST on the booking page, the meeting invite they’ll receive will also be for 1pm PST but adjusted for their time zone. For example, I’m located in EST meaning 1pm PST would show up as 4pm EST for me.

 

What should you check?

  1. Are you using a VPN? Is your system time setting correct? Keep in mind this goes for mobile devices too! As the host, you can check the invitee’s time zone by going to Scheduled Events and clicking on the “Details” dropdown for any event.

 

As the invitee, check the bottom of the booking page to ensure the timezone lines up with what you expect to see.

  1. Is your calendar set to the correct time zone? This is especially important to check if you’re on travel as you can often tell your calendar to either update to the new detected time zone or stay in your home time zone.
  1. Does your email provider show times in UTC or default to UTC? This can become a problem when Calendly tries to detect your time zone, but either can’t or receives conflicting information. When this happens, the timezone defaults to UTC. This is especially common with Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL email addresses.
  1. Did the host lock the time zone? If the host locked the time zone and the invitee is in a different time zone, this means the selected time will reflect the hosts time zone.

 

This topic has been closed for comments

23 replies

G

Thanks Jillian,

The problem that I have encountered is that even when someone schedules a meeting with me in their time zone, the reminder email then includes the meeting time in my time zone. It can be confusing and has resulted in missed meetings.

I have checked the settings for my reminder email and the only field that shows is Event Time, not specifying the time zone.

Is there any way that I can make sure the reminder emails are accurate for the Invitee’s time zone?

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Thanks Jillian,

The problem that I have encountered is that even when someone schedules a meeting with me in their time zone, the reminder email then includes the meeting time in my time zone. It can be confusing and has resulted in missed meetings.

I have checked the settings for my reminder email and the only field that shows is Event Time, not specifying the time zone.

Is there any way that I can make sure the reminder emails are accurate for the Invitee’s time zone?

Hey there!

If you go into your event type settings > when can people book this event? > additional rules for your availability > timezone, have you selected to “lock” the timzone? If so, this would result in your timezone being “forced” on invitees regardless of the timezone they book in. You can read more, here. 

If that is not the case, has this been an issue with all or only specific invitees? If only specific, it could be related to their own device or browser settings, their email or calendar settings, or a result of them mistakenly booking in the wrong timezone due to a combination of those things. Even VPNs can mess this up! Let us know - we are here to help! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
G

Hi Kelsi,

The confirmation emails show my time zone for all invitees. I double checked my event settings and they automatically detect and show meeting times in my invitee’s time zone.

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hi again, @GE_CD! Thanks so much for that information! 

Firstly, I wanted to go over the difference in Calendar Invitations and Email Confirmations. While you said “confirmation emails,” I’d love for you to head into an event type > notifications and cancellation policy > check to see if “Calendar Invitations” are turned on rather than “Email Confirmations.” 

For some context, with Calendly, there are two types of notifications: Email Confirmations & Calendar invitations.

  1. With Email Confirmations, Calendly sends the invitee an email notification from notifications@calendly.com and has a reply-to address that's associated with your Calendly login email. You can modify this on Account Settings page.
  2. With Calendar Invitations, your connected calendar sends the invitee a notification of the booked meeting which has a reply-to address that's associated with your Add to calendar email on your Calendar Connection page.

Confirmations and Reminders: Time zone included in meeting confirmations and reminders reflect the timezone that was visible on the booking page.

Calendar Invitations: The time zone included in calendar invitations are based on the time zone setting of the calendar receiving the invitation.

 

Some factors that might impact the time zone seen on invitees’ calendar invitations:

  • The timezone detected (or manually selected by the invitee) on the booking page at the time of booking
  • The timezone the invitee’s calendar is set to use
  • The timezone the invitee’s device is set to use
  • Any VPN’s timezone the invitee might have on their device
  • The timezone an invitee’s email/browser account is set to use

 

Something else worth looking into: 

With calendar invitations, Calendly searches to find the invitee's local time zone, but sometimes cannot locate it or receives conflicting information. When this happens, the timezone on the invitation defaults to UTC.

This is especially common with invitees who use Hotmail, Yahoo or AOL email addresses.

If a user is having a lot of problems with their invitee's receiving calendar invitations displaying in UTC, switching to Email Confirmations in the event type settings can be a great solution.

Switch from calendar invitations to email confirmations - example

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After looking into your event type settings (calendar invitations vs. email confirmations) and checking out the rest of this information, let us know what you figure out! 

 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
A

Hi! This is good content as I had a recent issue. I’m pretty sure my time zones are correct on my end and  several others have booked using the same link without issue. However, I have one invitee this week that was receiving 2 invites for her calendar and this doesn’t make sense. The first was 11(original) and again at 4pm, but this one did not show up on mine. I rescheduled her myself inside of Calendly for 11 am the next day and she received 2 entries for another time alltogether. 

Any insights on this issue?

jillian
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hi @Ann60546!

That is very strange behavior. Given that it hasn’t been an issue with any other invitees and this specific invitee has had it happen twice on her end, I suspect it has something to do with how her calendars are setup. I just did a quick Google search to see if I could find anything helpful, and it appears people receiving multiple calendar events (with or without Calendly) isn’t unheard of across all major email services - Google, Outlook, Apple, etc.

The bit that I’m stumped on is why the times are off. I’m wondering if her email and her calendar might be set to different time zones or if she’s using a VPN. If she has access to any sort of technical support - IT, customer support, etc. - for her email/calendar service, I’d definitely recommend she looks into it!

D

Not sure this is the place to ask this question, but here’s what I want to do:

 

I’ll be traveling to Kauai for a month. That time zone is two hours behind my usual time zone (PST). I’d like to proactively change my time zone availabilities for that one month, so that people can go ahead and book beginning now (I leave in about two weeks) with no need on my end to then have to reschedule appointments, etc. 

From what I’m seeing, the only option I have is to manually add an event schedule override for every single day I want changed to this temporary new timezone. Is this correct? It’s a hassle because I don’t have the same availability each day. 

Any suggestions? 

Thanks!

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Not sure this is the place to ask this question, but here’s what I want to do:

 

I’ll be traveling to Kauai for a month. That time zone is two hours behind my usual time zone (PST). I’d like to proactively change my time zone availabilities for that one month, so that people can go ahead and book beginning now (I leave in about two weeks) with no need on my end to then have to reschedule appointments, etc. 

From what I’m seeing, the only option I have is to manually add an event schedule override for every single day I want changed to this temporary new timezone. Is this correct? It’s a hassle because I don’t have the same availability each day. 

Any suggestions? 

Thanks!

Hey there! Unfortunately there’s not perfect answer, here. If you change your timezone settings now (for an event type or availability schedule) it will apply to all days booked regardless of when they are (for example - if someone booked an available date after your travel period it would still be in the new time zone). 

For this reason, here’s what I suggest: 

Create a new event type (or event types, if you need more than one) specifically for this travel need and time zone difference. Use the appropriate time zone and set date specific availability so that the event(s) can only be booked when you are on this trip. Lock the timezone, if they are in person events. You can also make the events secret so that only those you share the links with can book them, or, leave them public on your booking page. Include in plain language in the event title that this is for booking in “KAUAI” on “DATE X TO DATE Y.” Then, consider adding date overrides to your other event types making them unavailable for booking on the dates you will be in Kauai, so only the Kauai event(s) can be booked on those dates. 

I hope this helps!

Kelsi - Calendly Community
Z

How do I ‘Lock a time zone:?

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

How do I ‘Lock a time zone:?

Hey there! Great question! Head into any event type that you’d like to lock the time zone for > click “scheduling settings” > scroll to “additional options” > click to lock the time zone!

Kelsi - Calendly Community
Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey there, Calendly Community! I wanted to add to my own above comment about locking the timezone in your event type settings for those of you that are scrolling through this thread. The comment above is helpful - but not very detailed. I go over it in more detail, here, with written instructions and step-by-step screenshots for our more visual learners (like me!). See below for those steps!

  1. Click into any event type to edit settings
  2. Click “scheduling settings” 
  3. Scroll to “additional options” 
  4. Next to “time zone display” click the default “use invitee’s” to edit
  5. Here, you can select “lock the timezone (best for in person events)” > click “save and close”
Click into any event type to edit settings > click “Scheduling settings”
Under “Additional options” click “Use invitee’s” next to “Time zone display”
Select “Lock the timezone (best for in person events)” > you will see “Locked” appear in the top right of this section > click “Save and close” at the bottom of the editor

 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
I

I am trying to lock my time zone to Central since we are scheduling onsite meetings for a conference. I have set my profile time zone as Central but the time zone display keeps defaulting to East Coast (where I live). Not sure what else to try.  

 

UPDATE: Found the answer. Adjusted the time in Availability.

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey @IntelliBoard18664 - glad you were able to work this out yourself - we love to see it! Let us know if you get stuck on anything else and we’ll be here to assist! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
S

Hi, new user here. I’m still confused. My time zone is Suriname which is same as Brasil. I only want video calls from 9-12 in the morning. If a prospect from the Netherlands which are 5 hours ahead of me should see 14-17. Miami is one hour behind so should see 8-11. Which option should I use? The inventee’s or the locked option?

 

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey @Sjoerd26278 - great question! 

You will not want to use the “locked” option for this use case. When you lock the timezone, that will display the event type in your timezone on the booking page and in confirmations, which is great for in-person events, but would only cause a lot of confusion for virtual events that invitees in different timezones can book and join!

You’ll want to use the invitee’s timezone. When you choose this option, Calendly intelligently detects the timezone of your invitees based on their device settings. When they visit your scheduling page, your availability will be displayed in their timezone. (You can learn more about Calendly's time zone settings here!)

Rest assured that your bookings will still appear in your timezone for you, and in your invitees’ timezones for them.

I hope this helps!

p.s. I saw that you’re new - welcome to Calendly Community (and Calendly, proper)! You’ll definitely want to check out our New User Guide. It is packed full of tips + tricks to get you started and help you learn the ropes! It goes into all sorts of things from setting up your event type settings (to include timezones), setting your Availability Schedules and applying them to event types, integrating things like Zoom and more. Happy reading! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
E

Hello Kelsi,

I would like to remove the time zone mention from my appointment confirmations. When clients receive the appointment confirmation, it should only show the time, like 15:00, without specifying "Middle European Time."

Thank you.

jillian
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hi @Elyas84121,

There is no way to remove the time zone from the appointment confirmations unfortunately. And even if you could, I wouldn’t recommend it. In this day and age with so much remote work and cross-timezone collaboration, having the time zones ensures people know exactly what time they should be showing up at and that they’re anticipating the right time zone.

E

jillian Thank you

 

L

Year-round we offer remote trainings via zoom which we have figured out without issue, balancing our time zine and that of the person booking.

A few times each year we also have a team that travels to a tradeshow where we have potential customers schedule time to meet at our booth. These events are in different time zones from our main office that conducts the year-round trainings. Is there any way to have these tradeshow events be locked to EST while at the same time offering our trainings at MST?

Kelsi
Userlevel 7

Hey there @Lashbrook54058 -- yes!

All you have to do is set the timezone for the event type, then lock that timezone (only suggested if these are in-person events, which it does seem they are!). 

Follow the steps in the short Loom video I created for you, below, in order to do this: 

You can set a different timezone for each ET that you need to, then lock it as needed as well. I hope this helps!

Kelsi - Calendly Community
D

None of these workarounds are sufficient for my needs. I am in a different time zone every few weeks. Instead, I have a simple suggestion. Allow users to lock the time zone in their schedules. For example, they can create a schedule that’s unique to when they are in a +8hr time zone. They can create another schedule when they are in a +12hr time zone, and so on, and so forth. Then, they can attach a particular schedule to a range of dates - perhaps, in their date availability overrides. Now - they don’t need to do math gymnastics to figure out what times to use in their date availability overrides because the schedule does it for them automatically! Please consider doing something like this because your current (non)solution drives me bonkers.

J

Thank you so much. Great troubleshooting guide! Especially the point about VPNs affecting time zone detection. For those who struggle estimating meeting times across different locations, this app offers a time zone converter tool that can help ensure everyone's on the same page from the start!

M

I’m confused.. My time zone is set to Pacific Time in both my availability and calendar. My event type is in-person so it made sense to lock the time zone. But, Calendly is still sending emails with the event time in Eastern Time. What did I miss? Should I unlock the time zone? @Kelsi at Calendly 

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