Processes and TimeZone

RocketRod

Baffled with this one.

I have a user and he has set a timezone. I have a process where the user can copy an appointment to a number of different dates that he chooses from a PICK list. I set up a BO with a list of dates with which to choose from. All works well except I don't know how in the process to assign the correct timestamp to each appointment that is created within the process.

For example:

The user picks say 2 dates the 11 and 15th Jan to copy his existing appointment that exists for the 5th jan at 8am. The process should set up appointments for 8am on the 11th and 15th Jan. The problem is that in my process I have no way I can see to store the timestamp correctly for the attribute.

In otherwords the time is stored on the server as 8am 11th Jan and 8am 15Jan but no allowance is made for his timezone.

I need a function like

BO.Appointment.StartTime=TIME_ZONE(8am 11th Jan)

so that the datetime is stored on the server adjusted for the users timezone so that when it is displayed back to him it gives the correct datetime.

If I do

BO.Appointment.StartTime=8am 11th Jan

the server stores it as that and so incorrect datetime is displayed back to the user.

Anyone done anything similar or have some thoughts?

Support is such a function possible or is there a way to handle these things in a process?

Cheers Rod

nlarson

The only way to deal with time zones 100% is to set everything to a standard (i.e. GMT) then have a user defined variable which adjusts all time values to local date/time with they are stored/retrieved. That includes report and other outputs, so it gets tricky in a hurry! We did this in SatuitCRM and it was a lot of work, but in our case made for a very nice user experience given our global client base.

For you though, since this is a limited use case, perhaps you could have users enter their time zone value as a RegularUser attribute then use a rule to do the math for this BO? A bit of work, but should be pretty seemless for users and not be too hard if you only need to do it in a limited fashion.

RocketRod

Thanks Larson.

I'll keep working on it. Sounds like it wont be easy.

Would be nice if Support provided a Time Zone function that you could use in a process to do the conversion back to the server. My thinking is that it would be easy to create as they convert times from the server to the screen adjusted for the users time zone already.

Support could you provide the function that takes a date time and converts it using the users time zone BACK to the server held equivalent date? Just a reverse function of what you are doing now.

Cheers Rod

RocketRod

Woo Hoo. After hours of work yesterday I finally got there. Have to love AwareIM! Just a note to let those dealing in time zones know what I did to overcome my issue with using dates in processes. I managed to build my own calendar BO which has the calendar date and an associated datetime attribute in the users timezone. I also added month and day of week text attributes to the calendar so users can use query filters to search for a particular day of the week or month. They choose their dates and I then can in my process use the associated datetime attribute to store the date as AwareIM would do if the user had manually entered the datetime on the screen.

I'm a happy chappy!

Cheers Rod