Shorten Appointments and Meetings settings for Outlook might appear greyed out

Last Updated: July 11, 2022

ISSUE

When Group Policy settings are configured for the “Shorten appointments and meetings” feature using ADMX templates, users will not be able to change the “Shorten appointments and meetings” settings in the Outlook client as described in the article, End meetings early or start late. Instead, the settings will appear greyed out.

Notes:

For reference, the Group Policy Object settings for the “Shorten appointments and meetings” feature, included in the Office Administrative Templates, are:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\outlook\options\calendar]
"shortenevents"="Start_Late"
"endearlylong"=dword:0000000f
"endearlyshort"=dword:00000005

STATUS: INVESTIGATING

The Outlook Team is evaluating potential changes to PowerShell settings that can override any default settings so that all users get the same starting settings. We will update this topic when we have more information about any potential future changes.

WORKAROUND

If Administrators want to set the default for users and also optionally allow users to change the settings in Outlook, this can be achieved by using PowerShell configured using Set-OrganizationConfig, as explained in the article, New settings in Outlook give everyone a break between meetings. The current limitation with this approach is that these settings will not take affect if a user has previously modified them. If a user has already modified their settings in Outlook through File > Options > Calendar, their individual settings take precedent over tenant settings configured using Set-OrganizationConfig.