Name changes and calendar behavior in Exchange 2007

This might seem a little esoteric, but it's still important.

Let's look at name changes in Exchange / Active Directory and how they have an impact on calendaring.

User Name Changes has done a good job of sketching out the mechanics of name changes and its repercussions for email. However, as with anything else there's some consequences for calendars that we feel the need to document.

So let's look at Marge Bouvier and her calendar in Exchange 2007.


In the way of many marriages, Marge changes her name to Simpson after marrying her high school sweetheart, Orenthal.

If we change her name (leaving her alias alone) and go back into her calendar we note that the display name at the top is "Marge Simpson." New meetings are created as "Marge Simpson" but previously created meetings are still labeled "Marge Bouvier."



What happens when previously existing meetings are modified?

So glad you asked.

In her GUESTs' calendars (for example Russ) the original meeting looks like this:

If Marge updates it (say by adding an agenda), the invitation comes into Russ's inbox looking like it's from Marge Simpson:


But accepting it and looking at it in Russ's calendar, it will STILL identify the organizer as "Bouvier."

SO NOW, let's look at it the other way: When the organizer modifies a meeting Marge is a guest in.

Say, Russ modifies his original meeting:



Like this:

MARGE sees the following update come into her inbox (identifying her as Marge Simpson):


And now this exception is listed in Russ's calendar as having Marge Simpson as a guest.

Confused?

If you're not confused you haven't been paying close attention.

The situation is at least comprehensible because updates are at least still going between Marge and everybody else in the organization. What makes this possible is that her Alias ("marge") remained constant. Meetings which are unchanged keep her as "Marge Bouvier" meetings which are new or get updated list her as "Marge Simpson" (most of the time).

If her alias started as "marge.bouvier" and it needed to morph to "marge.simpson" things would be a lot wilder and woollier with all previous meetings now invalid and updates being impossible (exactly as happens with email in this situation).

I leave as an exercise to the interested reader what happens to any Delegate rights Marge had set up prior to her name change.