Possibility to change view time zone
Completed
Some of WATS users are complaining of UTC time zone usage on server Reports list view's. And would like to see the time based on their zone or station's time zone.
Some of them the station and headquarter are on same time zone and so the usage of UTC is meaningless.
And most times it would be more informative if the result time is same than the station's time zone. Example when comparing two different sites.
This setting could be example set by "My Settings".
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As mentioned in my request (#13660) it would make sense to have the possibility to make timezone specific analysis/statistics.
For example we have a site in China and if they start their production at 07.00am it will be 11.00pm in UTC time.
This causes all units produced before 08.00am would fall into the statistics of previous day what doesn't show the actual daily output then. I guess to take UTC as the standard and reference time makes totally sense but we should also to be able to make time zone specific analysis,statistics and searches. -
Perhaps it would be a potentially quick solution to add UTC offset to the filter screens. This would allow the user to place the UTC offset on the filtering page system the underlying query could easily use this for the calculation of data. We've created a quick excel spreadsheet showing UTC time converted to local time for our various sites to help work around this issue but it would be nice to not have to manually make the conversion every time.
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Hi all,
The UTC/local time issue has been discussed several times over the years, but we have not yet concluded an acceptable solution that fit all customers. Our experience is that dealing with time synchronization is never easy and especially since our customers receive data from all (24+) time zones. From this, we always end this discussion with UTC being the most "correct and easiest to explain" way of handling the time issue.
That being said, Virinco are still eager to find a more flexible solution as this is a reoccurring issue for both us and our customers.
Short background for further discussion:In reporting, we are dealing with 3 date/time types (in addition to the time zones):
- Report origin UTC date/time
- Report origin Local date/time
- The User login (web, app, etc.) Local date/time
In WATS, there are several “services” that handle data like triggers, aggregating data, alarming, data warehousing, syncing data between Local/Master server and clients, syncing Client status with reports, assets etc. etc. all from different time zones.
If all reports (Clients) and users were from the same time zone, adding UTC offset as an account setting should be simple, but this is rarely the case. This means that a time offset most likely have to follow the login user when they look at data. Some topics we always end up discussing:
- How do we make sure users look at the same data? If you get a print screen of a WATS report or reported statistics based on WATS sent from a user in another time zone (either internally or support). How do you know what the users offset was? Compare Weekly yield could be very confusing?
- If we start using local data/time, should we also allow setting first day of the week (Sunday or Monday), first week of the year etc.?
- The triggers and automations in WATS can be e.g. “If Yield drops below NN% from one day to another”. What is a day? UTC or Local (user or report) time?
- In WATS we look at data per hour, day, week etc. in aggregated view. A report created 23:00 UTC falls into the same day globally. A report created 01:00, the next day. When using local time in reporting, how do we define this without having to aggregate data on all 24 time zones?
- If a user set UTC offset in my settings, how would reports like Yield be displayed? If the filter is set from 9 AM local user time (UTC +2), does that mean 9 AM in china and 9 AM Europe? Or does that mean 9 AM in Europe and 3 PM (+8) in China?
- If a user update data (or log user actions in CP etc.), what date/time to use? How should a Manager see this date/time from a user in a different time zone?
- If UTC offset follow the user, how would you handle dashboards with global views? If you want to show 9 AM from a different time zone, would he have to calculate this “manually” or should we implement a more advanced date/time picker in the dashboard filters? If so, how can we drill between dashboards and reports where you most likely do not want the same advanced date/time picker?
- Other issues?
As we see the comments in this topic, we also believe that adding a UTC offset in My Settings may be the best solution, however we need to make sure we implement this in a way that all users do not get MORE confused about date/time synchronization, and are still able to see and understand the correct data.
We know UTC may be annoying, but it is at least easy to comprehend.We invite you to continue the discussions based on our input as we hope to find a good solution for this issue in 2020.
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Hi all,
A new "UTC vs Local Time" feature addressing this issue is now available in EAP:
"We are now exploring an option to configure WATS with your own time zone and calendar week rules.
With this option in place, you can have reports and yield calculations presented in your selected time zone.
This setting will be at the Account/server level, so all Users logging into the same Account or server (On Prem) will get the same local time settings."Sign up for the "UTC vs Local Time" early access program
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