Thanks for replying, Doug! Yes, this is essentially what we have done, but we are currently researching whether UTC is a valid value for the field, as it does not appear in the dropdown list. I just tested and it doesn't object to the value of UTC, so I will look into whether it behaves as expected.
Thanks again! -Paul On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Mueller, Doug <doug_muel...@bmc.com> wrote: > ** > > Paul,**** > > ** ** > > Every user has a User Preference record.**** > > ** ** > > One of the settings on that User Preference record is the timezone.**** > > ** ** > > By default, permissions are set up so that users can change their user > preference.**** > > ** ** > > Now, the user preference form is a FORM. That means it has permissions.** > ** > > ** ** > > You can simply change the permissions (create an overlay of the field). > You can remove all write permission**** > > to that field from everyone. You could remove read permission too, but > you might as well leave that so**** > > users are aware. Then, set a default value of UTC for the time zone.**** > > ** ** > > If there are existing User Preference records, an Administrator can do a > modify all for all cases where it is not**** > > UTC to set it to UTC for existing users.**** > > ** ** > > For every new user, create a user preference record as part of creating > the user.**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > Now, every user has UTC set as their timezone and they cannot change it.** > ** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > By the way, this same technique can be used for any user preference field. > You can take over the preference**** > > and prevent the user from specifying it by simply modifying permissions on > the fields on the user**** > > preference form.**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > I hope this helps,**** > > ** ** > > Doug Mueller**** > > ** ** > > *From:* Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: > arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] *On Behalf Of *Paul Blasquez > *Sent:* Thursday, January 24, 2013 1:09 PM > *To:* arslist@ARSLIST.ORG > *Subject:* Re: UTC Time**** > > ** ** > > ** **** > > Hi everyone, thanks for replying.**** > > My issue isn't with the server side of things, I'm fully comfortable > setting up UTC there. I think Joe saw the point best - we want to control > the user timezone and set it to be UTC as well.**** > > As to why, the reason is that we have multiple locations in multiple > timezones and we do not want to put the math on the user to figure what the > "real" time is for that location. We display all times in "Site Local Time" > and do the timezone offset in the background based on the timezone of the > location the user is focused on. "Site Local Time" is actually just server > time, and we have all user preferences locked to PST and the server is PST > as well. There are issues that come up every year having to do with DST, > primarily the fact that 2am does not exist for one day each spring. In > this case, our European users cannot select a perfectly legitimate hour for > their site because it happens to not exist for the application's timezone. > There are other issues that we have dealt with as well, like time jumping > forward and backward across date ranges that cross a PST DST boundary.**** > > So our options here are to figure out the correct way to lock users into > UTC, or as a backup plan we may decide to use Phoenix time for everything > as it does not have DST. We would prefer to use the global standard.**** > > I hope that makes things more clear. To re-iterate, the actual question > here is, is it possible for the user preference to be set to UTC in any way > shape or form?**** > > Thanks,**** > > -Paul**** > > ** ** > > On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 6:25 AM, patrick zandi <remedy...@gmail.com> > wrote:**** > > ** have lots of utc servers.. never had issues.. (except to remember that > escalations run on SERVER time not local time)... > > > > Patrick Zandi _ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are" and have been for 20 > years_ **** > > ** ** > > _ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are" and have been for 20 years_ **** > _ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are" and have been for 20 years_ > _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years"
