Today we are excited to release enhanced time zone support for BigWave. Prior to this release time zones were set at the company level and any/all times entered were considered by BigWave to be associated to this company time zone. There is a problem with this approach however. Users and customer sites are typically located across several different time zones, so we have now enabled time zone support at the user and site levels. This was a massive change requiring several areas be reworked and tested, but we are pleased with the results. This post details the changes and what you can expect from them.
In summary…
- Your existing scheduling data has been converted to GMT, but displays in the correct time zone when viewed through the application
- Time zones for individual sites/users can be set on the detail pages
- Time zones for individual sites/users can be uploaded via Excel import
- If an individual’s time zone is not set, it is assumed to be the time zone of the company (same as before this release)
- When viewing scheduling data in a schedule grid, you can view it in your time zone, or the site’s time zone
- These time zone changes do not affect projects that hide the time field in the schedule grid (most projects don’t use the time field).
- Daylight savings time is automatically accounted for. If a site or user is in Arizona or some other state that doesn’t recognize DST, simply setting the correct state specific time zone for that site/user resolves this issue.
Users that have the “Home Page.Adminstration” credential assigned to their role will see a new link on their home page…
This Timezone Abbreviations topic displays all time zones known to the system. Additionally a time zone abbreviation can be set. Unfortunately there is no official standard for time zone abbreviations, so you must come up with your own. Also, most of these time zones won’t be used so only the time zones that have the Use checkbox checked will show up in the system. As a convenience to our users, we have initialized each BigWave database with the most common abbreviations and usage for North America. Please feel free to change these settings to your liking however.
When you navigate to your profile page, you will see a new field to set the time zone…
This defaults to your company time zone setting, but adjusting it to your actual time zone will make timestamps display in your time zone. For example, if you are in PST, then comment date stamps will show in PST. A different user in EST will see the same datestamp, but converted to show in EST. Notice the list only shows time zone’s for which the Use checkbox was checked above. This keeps the available list concise. A similar field is found on the site page.
Time zones for users, technicians, and sites can be uploaded via Excel import…
Use this feature to quickly update your database to include the correct time zone for all users and/or sites.
When looking at a schedule grid, the time zone is one of two modes (site or user). Notice the three sites in view below are in different time zones (PST, MST, EST). Choosing the My time zone option will show all times in CST. When entering times in the schedule grid the time zone is assumed to be equal to the current time zone setting the user has chosen. So, in this example, if the user changes the view to their time zone (CST) and enters a time, then it is assumed to be in CST. To eliminate confusion in the audit trail, schedule date changes are always audited reflecting the site time zone value.
When importing schedule dates, any imported time values are assumed to be set at the site’s time zone setting as well. So if the user is MST, and an import is done for a site in EST, the time imported is assumed EST.
That’s it and thanks for your continued support! Please forward any comments/concerns/feature requests around this new upgrade to support@bigwavesoftware.com.
