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Corporate Time (Oracle) Calendar Users

As part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the beginning and ending dates for Daylight Savings Time have been modified. The impact of such a change upon the services we offer varies considerably. There are probably no other services for which the impact is potentially greater than for a calendar service, which relies upon complete agreement between user and server about time, timezone and daylight savings settings.

Oracle has issued a patch for the Corporate Time (Oracle) Calendar server which redefines the start and end of Daylight Savings Time. Installation of this patch will ensure that events scheduled in the future will be correct under the new DST rules. This patch and several operating system updates will be installed early on Thursday morning, March 8. It is hoped that Corporate Time will be available before 8 am.

The Problem

Oracle has warned of problems that may result from this patch. They claim that these issues are faced by all users of Corporate Time (Oracle) Calendar as well as other scheduling products.

There are two troublesome scheduling intervals. The first is the one between the start of the new DST and the start of the old DST: March 11 - April 1. The second is the interval between the end of the new DST and the end of the old DST: October 28 - November 4.

1. Events already scheduled for the problem intervals may appear to start an hour later than originally scheduled. This shift in scheduled event timing will be apparent after the patch is installed on Thursday morning.

2. Calendar events set up for the problem intervals using Oracle Connector for Outlook, before the Windows DST patch was installed on the client computer, may appear to start an hour later than originally scheduled. Few Drake people use the Oracle Connector for Outlook.

The Remedy

Oracle recommends that you check the events for March 11 through April 1 that were scheduled before March 8. They will need to be moved an hour earlier by the event owners to restore their original time. Similar adjustments will also need to be made for existing events for October 28 through November 4. 

In order to distinguish events that fall in these two problem intervals that were created before the earlier morning of March 8 from those that were created after the later morning of March 8, some universities are recommending that the time of the meeting be made a part of the meeting title. For example, in place of "Staff Meeting", enter "Staff Meeting 9:00". That way you know that it is not a meeting that has to be shifted. 

PDA users take note! If you modify events on the server from your computer and then synch those events with the PDA, make sure that the PDA is set to be updated by the server and NOT to up date the server. Otherwise, the corrections made on the server will be overwritten by the update (of old entries) from the PDA.

The solution suggested by Oracle for the potential problems identified won't please many. Oracle has promised a future product modification that will be immune to problems experienced as a result of this change in Daylight Savings Time.

If you have questions, please call the HelpDesk at 271-3001.