Timezone in Database

Hello! I have a “ship date” data field that is uploaded via a csv to my database. I want to access this date as is (not displaying differently for users or when searching for the data). I just want to display and search for the ship date “as is” for all users. I am having lots of trouble. I have tried using a static selection of PST but this changes the ship date to PST by a couple of hours. What am I missing? Thanks!

Bubble when you are in the editor and looking at the app data will display the date/time in the timezone you are in. So a user who selects a date/time of 10PM who is in PST and you are in EST, when you view the database entry, you will see the date/time as it is in EST, not PST.

Also, uploading data via CSV uses Server Side actions I believe, which has a set timezone, or at least may default to a timezone, such as the timezone the user is in, or the servers timezone (I am not 100% sure on this)

I recently had an issue with timezone due to a backend workflow running from a database trigger change. This issue, I had actually just tested again, and came back on the forum to report a finding.

What I did was I updated the app to version 22 or higher, so that the Override Timezone controls options became available. To do so, not only do you need to be on version 22 or higher, in the settings tab under general at the bottom of the page you need to check the boxes to enable these overrides.

For my issue with the database trigger change, then came available a dropdown option of selecting which timezone the actions should run in (ie: which timezone the dates/times should be evaluated in)…some choices were the users timezone, static choice or dynamic choice.

I am not sure what options may be available for uploading data via a CSV, but I’d imagine they would be similar, and if not, Bubble should be nudged to add them, since, again, I believe upload via CSV is happening server side.

If those options are available you can set a timezone for all data to be uploaded as.

2 Likes

Thanks @boston85719 this is helpful information. I appreciate it.

1 Like

Hi @boston85719 @grace.hong The date data that I am uploading via CSV looks like this (these are ship dates that are in Los Angeles Timezone): 2024-02-01 18:16:24+00:00

image

In my backend upload CSV I have Static choice set to Los Angeles:
image

When the CSV is uploaded the thing that is created changes the ship date (screenshot from Bubble):
image
I am in Chicago (Central US) Timezone. I would expect to see Ship Date as 02/01/2024 8:16 pm. This would be 02/01/2024 6:16pm if I were viewing this data in Bubble from Los Angeles. But now, if I were in Los Angeles, the Ship Date would be 10:16 am. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

I believe the +00:00 is supposed to be the UTC offset, which for LA would be -6 hours, so should look like -06:00 I believe

Give it a try with a CSV with a single line and see if it works.

@boston85719 Thanks so much for ideas and guidance here. The UTC offset was indeed what was throwing it off. Essentially the data was saying the ShipDate was in UTC (rather than Los Angeles time). When I removed the UTC offset it works and saves in LA time. Also when I change the UTC offset to 2024-02-01 18:16:24-08:00 it works as expected as well.

1 Like