Recurring meeting in Zoom creates NEW calendar in Outlook 365

[nonprofittechie]

This seems to be a new issue for us and I'm trying to figure out if it's a bug on Zoom's end or Microsoft's end.

We use Office 365 and thus Outlook for calendar.  We have several recurring meeting series in Zoom that require registration.

Once registered and download the ics file to add to Outlook, these recurring meetings are suddenly creating a NEW "Untitled" calendar in our Outlook calendar and adding the recurring even there.  See screenshot.

If we create ONE Zoom meeting requiring registration, this does not happen.  It has only begun happening on recurring meetings AND these recurring meetings have been created for quite some time, they are not newly created events in Zoom.

Please advise.  Thank you.

[YammieJammie]

I, too, am having a similar issue. I recently set up a Zoom meeting with multiple occurrences with the option selected for "people register once and can attend any." I tested registration for this/these event/s and after I submitted my registration, the page loads and accepts my registration and shows me my link to join the meeting. This is all fine. The problems arise when I click on "Add to Calendar." I select the Outlook .ics file, and when I double-click to open the .ics file a window appears in my Outlook asking me, "Do you want to open this calendar as a new calendar or import its items into your calendar?"

I suppose it recognizes the file as a whole calendar since it has multiple events, but can anyone confirm this? Specifically, what is the difference between "Open as New" and "Import?" Picture attached. 

[JRaveyts]

I can confirm I have the same issue and it is very disturbing to see that there hasn't been a solution in place yet.
I was working with a template, reached out to Zoom support and they advised me that the issue was because I was working with a template. I then recreated all the meetings from scratch once again, just to come to the same issue.
The result is that many of the attendees are missing the reminders as they don't have the info on their main calendar, so basically there is no point to almost even have these meetings... How can this be resolved?

[RN]

Hi @JRaveyts @nonprofittechie @YammieJammie just looking into past cases it seems to be a Microsoft "feature" (if you want to call it that) that is causing the new calendar to be added, per this Microsoft forum here

Because the event you're wanting to add to your calendar has two date listings instead of just one, a new calendar is being created. If you were to add an ics file with just one event, then it would add it to your normal calendar.

Suggest maybe updating your version of Outlook if using the plug-in, however, for functionality and best user experience I would use the Add-in 

[nonprofittechie]

I didn't mean to accept this as a solution because it is NOT for us.

We already use the Outlook plugin for Zoom and it's updated. There is no way to create a meeting or series with registration required that I've noticed, you have to do this via the web panel.

[jillianbrady]

Has this issue been addressed?

[RN]

Hi @jillianbrady I am seeing that this was fixed a while ago. As said within this discussion the issue being, "When adding a recurring webinar to their Outlook calendar via a .ICS file, instead of just creating a new event, it creates a new event on an entirely new calendar."

Creating a new untitled calendar is the old behavior of Outlook. Microsoft has since released a fixed. It is recommended that your upgrade the version of Outlook.

When downloading the ICS file, Outlook will pop up a pop-up box as shown in the figure below, and select import. For example:

Here is a public reference for Updating your Outlook Client: https://www.process.st/how-to/update-microsoft-outlook/

 

[marlars]

Good morning, thanks so much for following up! I followed the steps you shared and confirmed that my Outlook is up to date. I tested my recurring Zoom event again and had a colleague do the same. The pop-up asking whether I want to add a new calendar or import the event doesn't appear. Instead the event automatically is still automatically added as a new calendar. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

[marlars]

Zoom, as a large collaborator, you have more leverage with Microsoft than we do as individual customers to highlight this challenge. In reading the Microsoft forum you shared, it sounds like Microsoft previously had the ability to import recurring invites to a user's primary calendar as the default. It seems like adding the .ics as a separate calendar should be the secondary option that requires additional steps. 

If Microsoft's not willing to adapt then it'd be great to see Zoom modify your confirmation emails for recurring invites so it includes an .ics link for each event or something. Otherwise the recurring feature in Zoom is actually detrimental because it's more likely that attendees will miss the event. 

If 

[meriment]

This comes down the structure of the recurring ics file that is imported to Outlook which appear to not be compatible. You could use APIs to trigger an ICS file for a given recurring Zoom meeting that is structured to be Outlook compatible. If you are not a developer there is a Zoom app, Salepager, that lets you send Outlook ics files for your recurring Zoom meetings including meetings with registration.