How are dates and times in the Platform localised?
- Richard Larcombe
- Alice Wharton
Learn about date and time localisation.
Many of our clients have offices and employees across the globe. Our Platform supports such companies by offering full, automatic date and time localisation according to the location that is set for each user.
How does a user set their chosen time zone?
Each user is able to set which time zone they are in. This chosen time zone will then be used for localisation across the site.
Users can select their time zone by following these steps:
1. Go to 'Edit details' underneath the top navigation bar
2. Select your ‘time zone’
Under the 'Geography' section, select your time zone.
Every user's time zone will be displayed on their profile, for example:
What will be affected by localisation?
Each user's set time zone will be used to determine what dates and times show up for them. We can look at a couple of examples from the Platform below, but the same applies to all over the Platform:
Audit log:
The times and dates displayed on the Audit log will be shown to any users looking at it according to their time zone.
E.g. Someone whose time zone is set to London will see this:
Someone whose time zone is set to Hawaii will see the same Events but according to their own time zone:
Events:
The event creator will put in a start and end date, that will reflect their own time zone.
When this is saved to our database, this time is stored in UTC format.
So, if someone in London creates an Event for 4:10pm - 5:10pm, someone in New York would see this as 11:10 - 12:10pm. The same goes for anyone in any location.
A user whose time zone is London will see these Events at their time:
A user whose time zone is Hawaii will see these same Events at their time:
In summary: Date and time localisation is active for users throughout the whole Platform, according to their set time zone on their details page.