Resource accepts even when busy

[Nutz]

I have a resource (conf room) that seems to be happy to double book itself (sometimes).

It seems as if the double bookings are recurring meetings...

The only oddity that I know of is that I hacked up some aliases for them.

So there's a resource conf1@domain.com and I gave it an alias of westconf@domain.com (via zmprov aaa)

Anybody run in to anything like this?

Thank you,
Nutz

[stuartg.orion]

We're getting double bookings about once a week, the resource is happily accepting the requests. There are some very unhappy people about when it happens.

The only constant I've noticed is that Outlook is usually used to do the bookings, which may not be saying much because most of our users who book meetings are Outlook users.

Anyone know why this would be happening?

[Nutz]

So I ended up filing a support ticket around this. What it seemed to come down to is that somehow the first meeting is being marked as tentative (they blamed the person who scheduled the meeting marked it as tentative). Therefore the resource thought that it was free, and happily accepted the 2nd meeting.

I have also seen that if you book a resource for a recurring meeting that has ANY conflicts, it declines all of them, but Outlook will see all of the meetings as "Tentative", even though Zimbra thinks they are declined, and the resource will happily accept new meetings conflicting with the recurring meeting.

Hope that helps.

Nutz

[stuartg.orion]

Thanks Nutz, I'll see if that is the cause in my case. Definitely sounds like there are some bugs in the way Zimbra is handling things

[stuartg.orion]

Is there a bug open for this issue BTW?

[Nutz]

Bug 22437 - allow admin (or resource manager) to select whether new events should be declined when they conflict with a "tentative" appointment
Bug 22440 - resource: include list of tentatively conflicting events when auto-accepting an invite

It is claimed to be intended functionality. If a resource is booked for a tentative appointment, it assumes that it is not busy, since the appointment is tentative.

Personally I think that this is backwards, and that the room should assume that it is busy, rather than free if it is invited to a tentative meeting.

So I've had to dive into this some more for my own reasons....

So if you look in the source of the original invites (it can be tough to find, but you will need to go into the mailbox for the resource and view it's mail, then right click on the invite you would like to investigate and choose 'show original')

Find these lines... They should clearly tell you why you get conflicting appointments, but my argument is that a resource should ALWAYS be marked as busy, even if the original appointment request says otherwise. For instance, what about people who schedule interviews for other people, and need to be the organizer, but don't want their free/busy all messed up? They can schedule as "free" but then they won't have a lock on the resource.

either:
> X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:TENTATIVE
> X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:TENTATIVE

or

X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:BUSY

or

X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:FREE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:FREE

-Nutz

[stuartg.orion]

Ok so Outlook 2007 seems to use this when you use status Busy:

X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:TENTATIVE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:BUSY


So in our quick tests here I could create a conflicting appointment with every appointment my test Outlook 2007 user made.

[Nutz]

I would IMMEDIATELY file a bug, and open a support ticket. That is just plain ridiculous.

When filing your support ticket, reference this discussion, and my bugs as well

I don't run office 2007 at all in my company, but it is _supposedly_ supported in 5.x

[EnriqueI]

Running into this issue as well... it is creating a big headache for our IT staff.

[EnriqueI]

I created two "busy" appointments in Outlook 2007 as well, but they show up as tentative for the resource, hence the conflict. I agree with you that the "this is a feature" logic is a bit.... backwards. Can we get a zimbra dev to join the discussion?