Question remains unanswered: Worldwide users and TimeZones

HCL Domino Domino Forum
1

I will change the Subject text once I have the answer.

I’m quite comfortable writing the code. I’m looking for advice about what technique I can use to accomplish these three items.

This is a web application. I have an intranet domain that replicates into many different countries across the world. I am often asked to create databases which contain calendars and display events based upon date. Due to variations in timezones some events display on a different day compared to the reader!

In our intranet domain, we don’t have servers located in each timezone. A web user could enter a record, from any timezone, into a database on a server that could be in almost any other timezone.

Imagine a web page that contains five fields:

  1. The Date

  2. Time

  3. TimeZone

  4. Subject of Event

  5. Physical Location of Event

What I’d like to do is

  1. First I would concantonate the date, time and timezone fields into a single datetime item, right? How should it be stored in the single field (GMT or should I store it in multiple hidden fields for each timezone for step#2?)

  2. Display all the within a single web view. If all the events were converted to same timezone (GMT) then they could mesh nicely. Is there a way to switch the whole view into another timezone matching the reader… such as a restricttocategory? That is why I’m thinking of storing the datetime into multiple hidden fields… anyone done this before?

  3. create an agent that would send an email notification that would put a reminder in the recipients notes calendar at their correct datetime. (advice needed on the datetime only)

If you have done any of these things before, please post your reply so that hopefully, all three items can be accomplished.

Once I’ve assembled the answers, I’ll post it here:

  1. I’m considering: store the datetime in GMT and also in hidden fields for every timezone

  2. I’m considering: initially showing everything in GMT and see if there is some way I can allow the user to offset the datetime displayed to match whatever timezone they desire… experimentation required

  3. I’m considering: sending the reminder in GMT in such a way as the notes client shows it that it is displayed as GMT so the user can manually change the combo box, on their form, to ‘LocalTime’

These sound feasible?

Thanks,

Stan

2

Subject: Worldwide users and TimeZones

I am not sure about the web part of this, but what I do know about Notes’ timezones and datetime fields is, the time is always stored as GMT value.

Basically, the server is converting it into GMT value the moment you enter it into a field, and the client is displaying it as a local time.

Normally, the process looks like this:

1 - User is in DST. His time is -1 hour. When he selects a local time into a datetime field, the client should add 1 hour to compensate for DST, and then convert to GMT time before storing that into the field.

2 - when that field is displayed, the client checks in which local time zone you are. If you in DST time, it substract one additional hour. Time is then converted to the current time zone for display purpose only.

Normally, it is the client’s job to take Daylight Saving Time into account so that the proper GMT time is stored. On the web, that would be for the browser client to do, and I don’t know if and how it is done - you would have to do some testing.

hth

Nicolas Abesdris