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BusyCal User Guide

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BusyCal Time Zones

All events created in BusyCal are scheduled in local time. If your time zone is set to Eastern time, any events you create will be in Eastern time. If you change your time zone, the events in your calendar will shift to reflect the new time zone.

For example, if you live in New York and your time zone settings in System Preferences are set to US/Eastern time, when you create a "Dinner Meeting" at 6:00 PM, it will be scheduled in your local time of 6:00 PM Eastern time. If you travel to California and change your time zone settings in System Preferences to US/Pacific time, the "Dinner Meeting" will appear in your calendar at 3:00 PM, because 6:00 PM Eastern time is 3:00 PM Pacific time.

If you want to avoid this time shifting, you have several options:

Each option is described below.

Option 1: Enable the Time Zone menu in BusyCal

BusyCal provides a Time Zone menu that can be used to dynamically display all of the events in your calendar in a different time zone. This is useful when traveling between different time zones. It allows your computer's system clock to be set to a new time zone, while BusyCal continues to display events in your home time zone.

To enable the Time Zone menu, select BusyCal > Preferences > Advanced, and check "Show time zone menu in toolbar". You may also check "Use long time zone names" to display a city name along with the time zone.

Timezonepref

This will reveal a time zone popup in the upper right corner of the calendar.

Timezonemenu

Assuming you live in New York (US/Eastern) and travel to California (US/Pacific), here's an example workflow:

Note: This applies to the iPhone as well. The iPhone will automatically change your time zone when you travel and all of the events in your calendar may shift. If so, you can enable time zone support on the iPhone in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Time Zone Support, to achieve the same results as described above.

Option 2: Don't change time zones in System Preferences

Your time zone is set in System Preferences > Date & Time > Time Zone. In Snow Leopard and Lion, the time zone is set automatically. Therefore, when you travel, your time zone settings may change without being aware of it. If your time zone settings in System Preferences change, all of the events in your calendar will shift to reflect the new time zone. For example, if your home time zone is US/Eastern time, and your time zone settings are changed to US/Pacific time, all of the events in your calendar will be displayed 3 hours earlier.

You can avoid this time shifting by manually setting your Time Zone in System Preferences to your home time zone, as follows:

Systempref Timezone Systempref Dateandtime

Now your computer will think it's still in your home time zone and all of the events in your calendar will continue to display in their originally scheduled times.

Option 3: Schedule events in Floating Time

In addition to scheduling events for a specific time zone, you can schedule events in Floating time. An event scheduled at 9:00 AM Floating time, will appear at 9:00 AM in all time zones.

This may be useful if you are located in New York (US/Eastern) and are sending a meeting invitation to a client in San Francisco (US/Pacific) for a face to face meeting. If you schedule the lunch at noon Eastern and email the invitation to your client in San Francisco, the lunch appointment will appear at 9:00 AM on your client's computer. However, if you schedule the appointment for noon Floating Time, the event will display at noon regardless of what time zone you are in. Then, when you travel to San Francisco to meet with your client, you'll both show up for lunch at noon, regardless of what time zone is set on each computer.

Floating

On the other hand, if you're scheduling a conference call with your client in San Francisco while you are in New York, you should not use Floating Time. You'll want each participant in the conference call to see the event in their local time zone, since a call scheduled for noon Eastern will occur at 9:00 AM Pacific.

Warning: Floating Times are not well supported in Google Calendar. If you are sharing calendars with others through Google Calendar, Floating Time events may lead to unpredictable results.

Displaying Time Zones in the Info Panel

If you wish to display or change the time zone for an event, you can select BusyCal > Info Panel Preferences, and select the Start and End time zone options.

If you enable the Start time zone, a single time zone popup will display below the event end time. A single time zone popup is sufficient for events that begin and end in the same time zone, like a conference call that is being scheduled for 9:00 AM Pacific and Noon Eastern.

Start Time Start Time2

If you enable the End time zone field, separate popups will appear for the start and end time. This is useful if you are scheduling an event that spans time zones, like a cross-country flight that departs at 9:00 AM Pacific and arrives at 5:00 PM Eastern.

End Time End Time2

Google Calendar Time Zones

If you are syncing with Google Calendar and events are appearing in the wrong time zone (like GMT), you may have a timezone setting misconfigured on Google. Login to Google Calendar on the web, and verify that the global and per calendar time zones are correct. Here's where to set the time zones on Google:

After that, new events you create should have the correct timezone set. Existing events may need to be edited for them to get their time zones updated. The easiest way to do that is to unsubscribe/resubscribe or unpublish/republish any calendars you are syncing.