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Does Outlook correctly handle time zones for .ics (ICalendar) files?

I have a program that sends calendar appointments to users. However, these users are in many different time zones. When I create the .ics file, I set the time zone to the local time zone because they are scheduled here. They are then sent to users who are scattered across many time zones.

Will the forecast process correctly? As in the case: if I plan to meet at the 8th meeting, and I am in Philadelphia, she should appear at 8 in the morning for them in any other time zone.

I know that Outlook works with time zones to some extent, but I could not find any good documentation on it.

EDIT: I really had to ask something more similar to how you format it for proper processing, here is the format I am currently using. But I have little experience with this, so I can do it wrong:

String[] iCalArr = { "BEGIN:VCALENDAR", "PRODID:-//foobar//morefoobar//EN", "VERSION:2.0", "CALSCALE:GREGORIAN", "METHOD:REQUEST", "BEGIN:VTIMEZONE", "TZID:America/New_York", "X-LIC-LOCATION:America/New_York", "BEGIN:DAYLIGHT", "TZOFFSETFROM:-0500", "TZOFFSETTO:-0400", "TZNAME:EDT", "DTSTART:19700308T020000", "RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU", "END:DAYLIGHT", "BEGIN:STANDARD", "TZOFFSETFROM:-0400", "TZOFFSETTO:-0500", "TZNAME:EST", "DTSTART:19701101T020000", "RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU", "END:STANDARD", "END:VTIMEZONE", "BEGIN:VEVENT", "DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:" + strBeginDate, "DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:" + strEndDate, "DTSTAMP:" + strNow, "UID:DT 2012 Training - " + System.Guid.NewGuid().ToString(), "RECURRENCE-ID;TZID=America/New_York:20110207T103000", "CREATED:" + strNow, "DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:foobar", "LAST-MODIFIED:" + strNow, "LOCATION:" + location, "SEQUENCE:1", "STATUS:TENTATIVE", "SUMMARY:foobar", "TRANSP:OPAQUE", "END:VEVENT", "END:VCALENDAR" };
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Outlook should handle this just fine, assuming your particular application is writing the correct time zone information . Or perhpaps works in UTC and marks everything with a Z-zone.

I am confused by your remark that "testing is not an option." I can imagine that an unidentified "program" cannot write test data, but your question indicates that you are worried about Outlook. Of course, can you transfer some ICS files with different time zones and send them to Outlook? This should clearly indicate that Outlook knows how to deal with them.

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yes Outlook handles time zones, this KB article actually indicates a limitation that Outlook needs to be updated every time the time zone changes (DST, ...): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/ 931667

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