Timezone management in the DPS

Each DPS user, in the Profile page, can set the preferred timezone used to display dates and times on the pages.

Normally, this timezone can be used for any information displayed in the DPS, as the user most likely accesses products located in a single country with a single timezone (e.g., a technician serving Italian-only products).

However, this timezone may not be valid when visible products are distributed across multiple countries (e.g., Global Service Team) or when the country has multiple timezones (e.g., United States country service).
In the presence of multiple timezones, interpreting time-based data originated from different timezones can be complicated, which can lead to incorrect interpretation of the data.

The Timezone Button, located on the top bar, informs DPS users of the timezone used to display dates and times on the page.
For example, when a measure is displayed, there is no ambiguity about the time displayed, even if the user's timezone differs from that of the product.

How the Timezone button works

The Timezone Button automatically appears to the user when they enter a context with a timezone that differs from the user's preferred timezone.
The context timezone can be declared on several levels (Thing, Location, Customer), each one inheriting from the parent level.
By clicking on the Timezone Button, a pop-up panel allows the DPS user to:

Force a different timezone (e.g., PST instead of CET). This is useful when, for example, information needs to be displayed in the same way that the customer sees it.
Enable automatic timezone selection to always display information using the product's timezone.
Set the button so that it is always visible, even if the timezone is the same as the user's.

Page’s data and information are automatically displayed using the selected timezone (the one displayed in the button).
Also, timestamps that are passed to the backend to compute statistics or metric aggregations are based on the same selected timezone.
For instance, the Period Field (embedded or standalone) sends to the backend the start and end timestamps according to the selected timezone.

Suppose you are a technician based in the EU (CET) viewing a product installed in the UK (UTC).
By selecting the UTC timezone, date and times are formatted using UTC, and when you select a time period, for instance Yesterday, the start and end timestamps are computed on the UTC midnight.

In case custom widgets were created, refer to the AppUtils.getTimezone() method to access the timezone to be used to display dates and times.

Timezone Button states

While browsing the DPS, the user may enter a context with a different timezone. In this case, the button will change status to inform the user.
The possible button statuses are listed below.

The button shows the selected timezone in which information is displayed. 
A warning icon appears on the right end of the button when the user enters a context whose timezone differs from the preferred one (e.g., the service technician is in Europe, but the navigated product is located in Asia).
By activating the Context-aware automatic time zone selection option, the green icon appears on the right end of the button, and the timezone in which information is displayed automatically changes according to the navigated context.

How to hide the Timezone Button

This feature is enabled by default, but if you need to disable it for any reason, you can do so by going to the Advanced Settings section and deselecting the Enable timezone selector on page checkbox.
Please note that, in this case, DPS users will always see data in their preferred timezone, regardless of whether they are viewing the dashboard of a product installed in a country with a different timezone.