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I have an event with a reminder. When I create the event, the reminder works fine. However, when I update the event (and try to update the reminder at the same time), the event (vevent) updates correctly, but the reminder (valarm, specifically the trigger) does not change. Note, when I remove the valarm from the update event the reminder is set back to it's default of 15 minutes. Can I update a valarm in Outlook? I've tested this in Outlook 2013. (I don't have any previous versions of Outlook to test this with.)

create.ics:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:Prosperity-ecomm_sub_dev/_admin-476
DTSTART:20140328T140000Z
DTEND:20140328T160000Z
DESCRIPTION:Course: Test Course 14 (classroom)\nFriday, Mar 28: Test Classroom 1, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM;
LOCATION:Test Classroom 1
SUMMARY:Test Course 14 (classroom)
SEQUENCE:0
TRANSP:OPAQUE
BEGIN:VALARM
TRIGGER:-PT30M
ACTION:DISPLAY
END:VALARM 
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

update.ics

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:Prosperity-ecomm_sub_dev/_admin-476
DTSTART:20140328T150000Z
DTEND:20140328T170000Z
ORGANIZER:donotreply@test.com
DESCRIPTION:Course: Test Course 14 (classroom)\nFriday, Mar 28: Test Classroom 1, 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM;
LAST-MODIFIED:20140305T160100Z
LOCATION:Test Classroom 1
SUMMARY:Test Course 14 (classroom)
SEQUENCE:1
TRANSP:OPAQUE
BEGIN:VALARM
TRIGGER:-PT20M
ACTION:DISPLAY
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
Alex M.
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  • Is it something that you receive via email, or are you just creating the event in outlook, then editing it ? – Arnaud Quillaud Mar 19 '14 at 10:46
  • These events are saved in .ics files. The .ics files are received as attachments to an email. The user clicks on the attachments (the .ics files) and an event is added to the outlook calendar. – Alex M. Mar 20 '14 at 12:40

1 Answers1

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The second event has a "METHOD:REQUEST" and an ORGANIZER which makes it some kind of meeting invitation (although it does not have any ATTENDEE property).

Clients generally ignore alarms set on meeting invitations (the organizer is not the one who should be dictating when each attendee gets reminded). So replacing the METHOD with a value of PUBLISH (and removing the organizer) MAY allow the alarm to be taken into consideration.

Arnaud Quillaud
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    Outlook doesn't update published events when the method is Publish in the updating .ics file [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21274132/produce-an-ical-appointment-and-subsequent-updates-via-email-but-dont-offer-acc). I use the method request because that is the only way I can update a previously published event in Outlook [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4137437/how-do-i-get-outlook-to-process-an-event-update). It seems that Outlook doesn't follow the iCalendar spec completely. – Alex M. Mar 21 '14 at 17:17