Difference between revisions of "Time zones and UTC logics in Catglobe"
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In version 5.4 and prior versions, a Catglobe site had in reality just 1 time zone. This meant that all things happening on that site was registered in the date and time of the server where the Catglobe site was set up. Since Catglobe is often not hosted on a server which is used in the same time zone as the client, this was a major problem. Another problem is that many users of Catglobe are located in other time zones than their clients or their colleagues. That makes it very difficult to coordinate everything from deadlines to meeting hours to CATI calls. | In version 5.4 and prior versions, a Catglobe site had in reality just 1 time zone. This meant that all things happening on that site was registered in the date and time of the server where the Catglobe site was set up. Since Catglobe is often not hosted on a server which is used in the same time zone as the client, this was a major problem. Another problem is that many users of Catglobe are located in other time zones than their clients or their colleagues. That makes it very difficult to coordinate everything from deadlines to meeting hours to CATI calls. | ||
Revision as of 12:17, 26 December 2011
=Time zones and UTC logics in Catglobe=
In version 5.4 and prior versions, a Catglobe site had in reality just 1 time zone. This meant that all things happening on that site was registered in the date and time of the server where the Catglobe site was set up. Since Catglobe is often not hosted on a server which is used in the same time zone as the client, this was a major problem. Another problem is that many users of Catglobe are located in other time zones than their clients or their colleagues. That makes it very difficult to coordinate everything from deadlines to meeting hours to CATI calls.
This problem was solved in version 5.5 with the introduction of UTC.
What is UTC?
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC,--Fr. Temps Universel Coordonné) is International Atomic Time (TAI) with leap seconds added at irregular intervals to compensate for the Earth's slowing rotation. Leap seconds are used to allow UTC to closely track UT1, which is mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. In casual use, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the same as UTC and UT1. Owing to the ambiguity of whether UTC or UT1 is meant, and because timekeeping laws usually refer to UTC, GMT is avoided in careful writing. Time zones around the world are expressed as positive or negative offsets from UTC. Local time is UTC plus the time zone offset for that location, plus an offset (typically +1) for daylight saving time, if in effect. UTC replaced Greenwich Mean Time on 1 January 1972 as the basis for the main reference time scale or civil time in various regions.
Now it will not matter where in the world the server with the Catglobe implementation is hosted. Times will always be stored in UTC.
This does although not mean that all users will see time in the GUI in UTC. From version 5.5 all users will directly or indirectly have a time zone associated with them. Look at the GUI for user resource to see where to set this.
If a user does not have a time zone specified, he will automatically be assigned the time zone called "UTC".
A users choice of time zone will decide how all the dates and times that are saved on the database are interpreted by the interfaces he is logged in to. Below is an example of how the same record has different dates and times, since it is two users with different time zones who are looking at it.
