Timezones and Daylight Saving Time

[aucforum]

I would like to know if UTCNOW() Function and your timezones:

help.appsheet.com

Time Zones

A comprehensive list of time zones for Reports.

automatically take into account Daylight Saving Time please?

[LeventK]

No, UTC itself never has DST. It is the constant frame of reference other time zones are expressed relative to.

From the Wikipedia UTC page:

UTC does not change with a change of seasons, but local time or civil time may change if a time zone jurisdiction observes daylight saving time or summer time. For example, UTC is 5 hours ahead of local time on the east coast of the United States during winter, but 4 hours ahead during summer.

In other words, when a time zone observes DST, its offset from UTC changes when there’s a DST transition, but that’s that timezone observing DST, not UTC.

[aucforum]

LeventK:

with a change of seasons, but local time or civil time may change if a time zone jurisdiction observes daylight saving time or summer time. For exam

So I need to identify and maintain the DST periods myself within my app?

[LeventK]

@aucforum
You don’t need to identify and/or maintain any DST period. As DateTime value is read from your mobile device, your mobile or your users’ mobile devices or desktops will automatically adjust that

[Aleksi]

UTCNOW() gives you the DateTime value as UTC+0

[aucforum]

So technically, the Appsheet with its UTCNOW() Function is receiving the date time AND the timezone (in a mutually recognizable format) from the device?

[LeventK]

@aucforum
Correct. If your device’s timezone setting is GMT+3 for example and the time clock in your device is 06/20/2019 10:45AM, UTCNOW() will the value of 06/20/2019 07:45AM. Provided your phone switches to DST, than the result of UTCNOW() will automatically be adjusted as such. Basically you can think UTC as GMT+0.

[ehnz]

Do you know if there is a way to format dates to different timezones inside the app - for example if we have a time column that is currently the users timezone, we would like to re-format that to a different timezone in another column