Start with a real date
Choose the date on the calendar of the first listed zone. Location offsets can change with daylight saving, and regions often transition on different weekends. For example, the gap between New York and London temporarily differs from its usual value in parts of March and October. A timeless UTC-offset chart cannot represent those weeks, so the planner resolves the selected civil date through current IANA zone rules.
Collect actual work windows
Set the local start and end of the acceptable work window rather than relying on a hidden 9-to-5 assumption. The current calculator applies one chosen window to every zone, which is useful for a first comparison. If participants have different schedules, rerun narrower scenarios or verify the candidate manually. Also confirm local weekends and holidays; time-zone conversion cannot know a person's availability.
Score the full meeting duration
Evaluate both the start instant and the end instant. A one-hour meeting beginning at 16:30 does not fit a 09:00–17:00 window because it ends at 17:30. The planner converts each endpoint separately in every zone, counts zones whose full interval fits, and measures minutes outside the window. This also avoids assuming every local clock advances uniformly during a daylight-saving transition.
Rotate unavoidable inconvenience
When no candidate fits everyone, the ranking first minimizes the largest individual out-of-hours burden and then the total burden. Read the per-zone warning beside each candidate rather than treating rank one as universally acceptable. For a recurring team meeting, record who accepts an early or late slot and rotate that burden. Ask participants before sending the invitation, especially when the meeting crosses a local date boundary.
Read fractional offsets and date changes
India commonly uses a half-hour offset and Nepal a 45-minute offset; other zones can differ by 30 minutes seasonally. Do not round those displays to whole hours. A Tuesday UTC instant may be Wednesday in Kiritimati and still Monday elsewhere near the date line. The result prints weekday, calendar date, time, and numeric offset for every zone so these changes are visible before download.
Verify the exported event
Each download is a one-time ICS event anchored with UTC start and end values. Open the chosen rank in the destination calendar and verify its displayed local time, title, and duration before inviting anyone. The file intentionally contains no recurrence rule. If you need a repeating meeting, create recurrence in the calendar application and inspect future occurrences near daylight-saving changes rather than assuming the first date's wall-clock pattern persists.