'End appointments and meetings early' feature now broken in Office Cloud Policy Service

[Joe Savage]

Originally the option to in Outlook to 'End appointments and meetings early' was a simple on/off option and was reflected in the registry with a DWORD 'endeventsearly' in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar

Now a recent update now allows users to select 'End early' or 'Start Late' and the DWORD has been replaced with String Value ShortenEvents that can have the value 'End_Early', 'Start_Late', or 'None'.

However the Office Cloud Policy Service still only shows the previous settings which applies only the DWORD which now has no effect.  Can you please update the Office Policy Service to reflect the new setting in Outlook so we can push this out to our users?

Thanks!

[#2]

HI Joe,

Do you know which update has caused this? We are trying to use GPO to push this registry change out to our users and are experiencing some issues, just wondering if we should be using these new values

Best
Matt

[#3]

@Matt_TheTrust Looks like it was a fairly recent change added to the "Current Channel" release track on Jan 26th.

Version 2101 (Build 13628.20274)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/current-channel#version-2101-january-26

If you can prevent your staff from receiving this update, then you should be able to keep using the old values / GPO settings.  If not, then you may need use your GPO to push the reg values more manually.  Of course in my case, GPO isn't much help cause no one is coming to the office and connecting to the DCs right now which is why I was hoping to push this out via the Office Cloud Policy Service, but it still hasn't been updated and doesn't have any way of pushing just regedits like GPO

[#4]

@Joe SavageI can't thank you enough for posting this. I have been so frustrated trying to resolve this after the update broke our GPO. If you don't mind sharing, how did you come to this conclusion. As in how did you find out a string value "ShortenEvents" needed to be added to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\outlook\options\calendar with the values you supplied?

I tried changing it manually in Outlook and comparing the registry before and after, but didn't find this.

Either way thank you!

[#5]

There are two section in the registry that control Outlook settings:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\

The first corelates to settings that are manually configured by the user, change the registry here and you'll see it updated in Outlook (after you close and re-open), but the user will be able to switch it back

The second corelates to settings that are configured via GPO, change the registry here and it'll update AND grey out the option in Outlook so it can't be changed,

So you had the right idea, you just weren't looking in quite the right place. 😄 Glad I could help! Now if MS would just update their management tools...

[#6]

@Joe Savage  Well I want you to know you are my hero for the next week at least. We had just rolled this out company wide and made a big announcement about it, only to have it break a few weeks later. I spent hours with Microsoft support to no avail and you just solved it for me.

Thank you for explaining the method behind your troubleshooting! This is the first time I have bothered to post, but this was too helpful to not say thank you.

[#7]

@Joe Savage  thanks for this post! It has helped restore a bit of sanity after troubleshooting for at few hours and not understanding why Outlook is not reading the registry values I have been setting! As you say, some recent change in Office seems to have broken this.

We are hoping to roll out this feature to the company via GPO but I guess we'll have to wait. I am unable to make it work with GPO at all. Neither via the ADMX template values, nor via registry values via Preferences. Strangely, when setting the feature via Outlook GUI it works fine, despite the fact that the very same registry value is written to registry that I have been deploying via preferences. 

Matthew

[#8]

@Joe Savage this is very insightful.  I have been trying to set this up for our business but have realized I am really a novice with respect to deploying registry settings via GPO.  My hope is MS will fix/unbreak the policy at some point.  I will keep trying the registry adjustment with what you have written. Thank you.

[#9]

@BarryBuchanan 

This is a new registry key 

Path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar
Name:ShortenEvents
Value:End_Early
Type:String

[#10]

Hi

We used to set this key via SCCM: EndEventsEarly with a value of 1. This doesn't work anymore.
If I use your suggested registry key, it doesn't change the setting in Outlook. If I make changes manually in Outlook, the key changes. But not the other way around. Any ideas?

[#11]

@Rieder73 

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar]
"EndEarlyShort"=dword:00000005
"EndEarlyLong"=dword:0000000a
"ShortenEvents"="End_Early"

There is an issue:

When using “New Appointment,” the default works, but it does not when using “New Teams Meeting.”

Workaround:
Create a regular Outlook meeting and convert it to Teams meeting

[#12]

We don't use/have HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar.

[#13]

@Avith320  this is what we have applied in the user config but alas... no luck as yet.

[#14]

@BarryBuchanan 

Have you tried to put the key under \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar?

[#15]

@setupen 

We used to set this through Endpoint manager, but after Microsoft changed the setting to either "end early" or "start late" i have not worked.

I have had a very long support case going with Microsoft, but still no luck. Now they are telling me it should be solved, after updating office, but it still does not work.

I tried setting the reg keys, which are set when i manually apply the setting in outlook, but it still does not apply. Only if i do it manually...

These are my reg keys, when the setting is manually set. But if i undo the setting in Outlook, and apply the manually, it will not work...

Has anyone had luck with this?

[#16]

Just adding my voice to this - as stated, changing the GUI in Outlook changes the registry keys as expected (and using RegistryChangesView supports this \ doesn't show anything else), but changing the keys (manually or via GPO) doesn't update Outlook. This also means we are restricted to the default time lengths in Outlook \ Options \ Calendar, and we wish to use bespoke durations.

[#17]

@rbj42 

 

 

 

i have created the win32 package in Intune and deployed. it wont work for teams meeting.

 

[#18]

With a powershell script in a win32 package?
Does it work that way with just the three reg keys?

[#19]

PowerShell wont work as it is user registry keys.
Windows app (win32 ) : Apps-windows-select app type

[#20]

But what are you packaging in the win32 app?
Powershell script, Bat or something else?