Timezones and Daylight Saving Time

aucforum
Participant V

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

automatically take into account Daylight Saving Time please?

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LeventK
Participant V

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 thereโ€™s a DST transition, but thatโ€™s that timezone observing DST, not UTC.

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

@aucforum
You donโ€™t need to identify and/or maintain any DST period. As DateTime value is read from your mobile device, your mobile or your usersโ€™ mobile devices or desktops will automatically adjust that

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

aucforum
Participant V

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

@aucforum
Correct. If your deviceโ€™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
Participant IV

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

 

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