Can I get a bot trigger time to respect DST?

[JBenjamin]

I have a bot I want to run at 8:00am locally. But the the only timezone choices for a daily schedule are standard time. From my other searches, it appears that the bots only really know UTC, and the "timezone" settings are just a fixed offset and don't account for daylight saving.

Is there any way to get the bot trigger time to respect DST, or do I have to go in and manually change the "timezone" offset twice a year?

[SkrOYC]

You will need to find the precise timezone description for the place you live.
I had a similar issue, until I found the right timezone for me.

In other words, if you consider the right time zone, it will change considering daylight saving

[JBenjamin]

The bot trigger scheduling does not have any daylight saving or "auto" time zone options, though. It only has choices for Standard time (or a few fixed UTC offsets). It's not even something I can check in a condition, because Appsheet needs to know the "correct" time before the bot even triggers.

[SkrOYC]

What you need? To have a different time zone per user?

[JBenjamin]

No, I only have one user in one time zone. But 1) It's a bot, the process doesn't have an associated user to pull a time zone from, and 2) bots only have settings for Standard time or fixed UTC offsets. I can set to Standard time for the locale where this bot will run, but not Daylight time, and don't see anything that will automatically adjust.

In other words, I need the bot to run at 8:00 AM local time, taking daylight saving into account. Is this possible?

[SkrOYC]

That's what I said, if you use the right time zone, it will change based on daylight saving time

[JBenjamin]

Whoops, I accidentally hit Solved instead of Reply but it is NOT solved. I know what time zone I'm in. There are no daylight saving options in the bot at all:

Notice there are no options for DST! If I choose "US Mountain Standard Time" (we are in the US, mountain time zone) it is off by an hour, as currently we are on US Mountain Daylight time and GMT-6, not -7. I am not even sure what the other "Mountain Standard Time" that is there even is, although it says GMT-7, because no Standard mountain time I'm aware of is GMT-6. Those choices aren't even official time zone designations, which would be something like "America/Denver". As far as I can tell they are simply fixed offsets to GMT.

[SkrOYC]

---

@JBenjamin wrote:

As far as I can tell they are simply fixed offsets to GMT

---

That's what I'm trying to say, they are not in my experience.
Try with Mountain Standard Time

[JBenjamin]

Yes, exactly. But that means I have to change the Time Zone setting twice a year for it to be correct locally, like an old school analog clock. It would be nice if Appsheet did this for me, but it doesn't as far as I can tell and nobody has replied differently. Oh well.

[SkrOYC]

---

@JBenjamin wrote:

but it doesn't as far as I can tell and nobody has replied differently

---

Aside from me?

[JBenjamin]

Well, there aren't any other posts!

I guess I should have phrased my question a little differently: "Can a bot trigger time adjust for daylight saving automatically?" And I guess the answer is no.

[SkrOYC]

---

@JBenjamin wrote:

"Can a bot trigger time adjust for daylight saving automatically?"

---

I've been trying to say Yes to that all this time

[JBenjamin]

Okay, so please help me with the settings. My current official time zone is "America/Denver". I want my bot to run at 800am local time, GMT-6, right now, and start running at GMT-7 on Nov. 5 when we switch to standard time, automatically. Which time zone should the bot use?

I can't test this until Nov. 5, unfortunately.

[SkrOYC]

---

@SkrOYC wrote:

Try with Mountain Standard Time

---

And wait until nov. 5

[JBenjamin · Accepted solution]

Follow up, Nov. 5: I set the bot time zone to "(GMT-07:00) Mountain Standard Time" back in October when we were in DST. Today, the bot adjusted to the return to Standard Time. Hooray! On Sat. Nov 4 it ran at GMT-6, this morning (Sunday) after the time change it ran at GMT-7.

So apparently selecting your standard time zone is the correct way to go about it... even if you're currently on DST and it's very confusing. I wish this were either documented somewhere, or AppSheet would just give the time zones a better name (like, you know, the standardized TZ identifiers that already exist).

[SkrOYC]

---

@JBenjamin wrote:

So apparently selecting your standard time zone is the correct way to go about it

---

Yep!