Turning off reminders during a calendar migration to Microsoft Exchange / Office 365

We've been doing a bunch of Oracle Calendar Server to Exchange migrations lately and this has the benefit of giving me lots of detail oriented stuff to write about, and the downside that I'm getting tired of writing about it.

So what happens when you do not want to get reminders for meetings as you migrate into Exchange?

This is an Outlook configuration issue.  That is to say, this is normal Exchange functionality.  Meeting requests in Exchange create a tentatively accepted calendar item that carries with it the “default reminder time” set in Calendar Options.  Note that this applies to meeting invitations, not to appointments (calendar events with no attendees) which will all go in with no reminders set in an OCS to Exchange migration (because Oracle Calendar Server strips them off in the ICS export).

The PowerShell syntax, to TURN OFF for all MBX USERS (before migration)

get-mailbox -resultsize unlimited  -filter {isResource -eq $false} | Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration -RemindersEnabled:$false 
-DefaultReminderTime:0  -ReminderSoundEnabled:$false


to TURN ON (after migration)
get-mailbox -resultsize unlimited  -filter {isResource -eq $false} | Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration -RemindersEnabled:$true 

-DefaultReminderTime:00:15:00 -ReminderSoundEnabled:$true

This can be set in PowerShell for one user as in this screenshot:

Finally, note that if a user is logged in or connected (OWA/Outlook) setting these preferences will not kick in until the user logs out and logs back in.  So, if you are testing it, you will see the settings change BUT you won’t see an reminders turn off until you log out/in.

Outlook Meeting Reminders: OL2003 + E2K7 = Confusing

We have some folks migrating into Exchange 2007 keeping their Outlook 2003 calendars, who started to notice some odd behavior with their reminders.

15 Minutes seems to be the magic number for a meeting reminder default when you put Outlook 2003 in an Exchange 2007 environment.

Expect that under a variety of conditions of meetings being proposed to and from OL2003 that the default will be set to 15 minutes on the ATTENDEE's calendar, regardless of where it was set in the meeting ORGANIZER's, and regardless of the ATTENDEE's Default reminder setting.

The situation arises with default settings and reminders if Outlook 2003 is the origination point. We haven't (yet) seen problems with OWA or Outlook 2007.

There are in the support database a variety of problems listed with meeting reminders in Outlook (appointments seem to be working OK, but maybe that's just our eyes glazing over).

Among the classics:

The reminder for the meeting is removed when you accept a meeting request in Outlook 2003 which is based on Rules removing reminders

A reminder for an all day event meeting request is reset to 18 hours when you send the meeting request in Outlook 2003 which is self-explanatory.

And Meeting reminder settings in a meeting request may be cleared or may take precedence over the meeting reminder settings in Outlook 2003 which says there should not be a problem (but which we cannot reproduce).

Try just hitting the support.microsoft.com and searching for "Outlook reminders".