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Create a Group Event: can't specify time zone

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Posted on by rbin

One of the tasks of my Flow is to create an all-day event in a group calendar.

All events created via this connector are created with timezone = UTC. This becomes an issue when viewing the event in a non-UTC timezone, as an all-day event becomes a 24-hour event.

For example, 2017-01-01 to 2017-01-02 is an all-day event for 1 Jan 2017. When viewed in a UTC+11 zone, this becomes the 24-hour event 2017-01-01 11:00:00 to 2017-01-02 11:00:00, spanning two days.

Other connectors (e.g. Create Event V2) have the ability to specify a timezone, why is it left out here?

It's worth noting that the following constraints exist:

All-day events must start and end at midnight
Events are stored as UTC
Attempting to specify an offset in the Start/End Date fields (e.g. 2017-01-01T00:00:00-7:00) results in the error "All-day events must start and end at midnight"

See also: CreateCalendarEvent_Response here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/office365groups/

EDIT: This ability exists in PowerApps, but appears unavailble in Flow: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Discussion/Office-365-Group-Connector-Available/td-p/69155

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Building flows

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v-xida-msft on at

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Hi @rbin,

Thanks for your feedback, could you please share a screesshot of your flow's configuration?

Do you set Is All Day field to Yes within "Create a group event" action?

When working date and times, all times in flow would be converted into Universal Time (UTC or GMT) automatically. If you set the Is All Day field set to yes wihtin "Create a group event" action, you should type a midnight time wihtin Start Time field and End Time field.

In addition, if you want to create an all-day event in a group calendar, you could consider take a try with the following workaround:

Add a proper trigger, here I use Flow Button trigger.

Add a "Create a group event" action, Start Time field set to following formula:

2018-01-24

End Time field set to following formula:

2018-01-25

Is All Day field set to Yes.

Image reference:

The flow works successfully as below:

I have made a test on my side and find that the default time zone of Start Time and End Time within "Cretae a group event" action is UTC format, we could not modify it in Microsoft Flow currently. If you would like this feature to be added in Microsoft Flow, please submit an idea to Flow Ideas Forum:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas

Best regards,

Kris

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rbin 15 on at

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Hi Kris,

Thanks for the reply.

Perhaps explaining my use-case will help.
I'm trying to create a flow for an Leave Request. Once this leave is approved by the relevant parties, the flow is to popluate an administration calendar with an all-day event. This is a group calendar.

I have no issue creating an all-day event using date-only inputs (as your flow does), but this is created midnight-to-midnight in UTC. Of course, when viewed by anyone outside UTC, the event is no longer 'all day'. What is required is a midnight-to-midnight all-day event in UTC+11.

Below are screenshots of the input/output of the Action. The Output timezone is UTC, but there is no option to specifiy a timezone in the Input.

Other "Create Event" actions allow the timezone to be specified, allowing the all-day event to be created in the relevant timezone. However, Create Event V1 and V2 both cannot interact with Group Calendars.

Can you suggest any other way to create an all-day event in a Group Calendar in the timezone UTC+11?

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logos 2 on at

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Regaring your issue: '...Create Event V1 and V2 both cannot interact with Group Calendars."
You might use the 'Create Group Event V2' instead of. However, this event lacks the time zone parameter, as well.
A time shift might be appended to the Start Time/ End Time field, such as '2023-12-31T18:00:00+1:00',
but this does not work together with the all-day option. Thus, we have always 'UTC midnight' in such created all-day events. Anyhow, the Outlook entries look fine (the 'event bar' in the Outlook calendar view covers the whole day. Unfortunately, I do not know, whether the reminder alerts count down from UTC midnight or local time, because I do not receive any reminders for group event with my Outlook installation.

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mckaycr 4 on at

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Hi @rbin,

I was having the same issue as well. I have googled like crazy without finding the answer, but I did figure it out on my own and thought I'd share.

I'm using the Office 365 Groups "Send an HTTP Request V2" and I used the information I found here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/group-post-events?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http

This shows you what the URI should be:
https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups/<your_group_id>/events

Obviously your Method is POST

and the article goes on to show you what the JSON structure for the body should be including setting the timeZone value to your local timezone.

I tested it a couple times and the event indeed shows the correct timezone now.

Hope this helps

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rbin 15 on at

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Thanks for sharing @mckaycr, I'll give it a go

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