Is there a way to configure or control time zones for a calendar?

I was clicking around in the calendar demo and realized that it is hard to work with the date time. It looks like the time zone configuration for the calendar view and the date time column doesn’t match. It isn’t obvious which time zones that are used where so when I pick a date time, the time doesn’t match where it is placed in the calendar.

Is it possible to configure how the time should be shown? Ideally it would be like google calendar, that is, everything should be a local time I pick.

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Dear Tomas,

Unfortunattely not yet as explained in the link: https://help.coda.io/organizing-your-doc/layout-options/how-to-build-a-calendar-view
I am sure the developers will soon find a solution for it.

Enjoy Coda,
Jean Pierre

Thanks for pointing me to the post. I hope the devs fix it soon, otherwise it is quite useless when you work in a distributed team that spans multiple time zones.

Hi folks,

Timezone handling is definitely an area where Coda will be improving in the future.

The current state of the world:

  • There’s currently no doc-wide or per-column setting for default timezone. Each individually entered date or datetime is assumed to be in PST unless a timezone is specified explicitly (e.g., “Sept 20, 2018 15:00:00-05:00”).
  • Calendar view will display events relative to the user’s local timezone, as reported by the browser.

As long as your date/datetime data is specified in PST or carries explicit timezone information, your calendar view should render nicely with localized event times for users in different timezones around the world. As an example, if I schedule an event at 9 am in PST, then a user in Rome would see that event on their calendar rendered at 6 pm. If that user in Rome then tells their browser they’re in California, they’ll see that event rendered at 9 am on their calendar.

We’d love to hear more specifics about how you’d like this stuff to work, so please keep detailed scenario-based feedback coming!

Cheers!
Chris

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Thank you for an elaborate answer.

The way I would like it to work is exactly like the google calendar. So when I’m in a new timezone I get the option to change timezone, and then everything I do is in this new timezone, both when I enter and when I look at the data. That was not the experience I had now, as you also explain. When I just clicked to select a time that was selected using PST, but the calendar was using my local time so that gave the feeling that things were off.

Let me know if I’m not concrete enough.
Tomas

One workaround here is to enter in the timezone after the time (assuming you’ve selected a Date & Time) column format. For instance, if you put EDT at the end of the date, it will convert events from PST to EDT (this helps especially for full-day events):

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I agree that is a workaround, but feasible to require the users of the doc to remember the time zones to use though.

Hi there,

For me this works:

`thisRow.Created()+Hours(8)` (I am located in Europe, so 8 hours difference)

Not sure how you think that should be used in a calendar in a distributed team that also travels between the offices.

currently I only use Coda for personal purposes.
however I think that you can create a table, where you manage the time difference by users (for yourself +3 hours, the other guy +8 hours, etc.)
then you can reference this table in the above mentioned formula. if it is a task list, then you cerainly would require responsible
or you can use the login information - and maybe it would drive the formula…

EDIT: Nevermind, realised I could just use a Time() function to add the difference prior to initiating the Zap. Not ideal, but will work for now :smile:

Is there any way to do this within a formula? I’m trying to push certain data to Buffer using a button + Zapier integration, but right now Buffer is receiving PST instead of GMT (which it expects), so everything is going out at the wrong time.

Manually amending this isn’t viable, but the datetime field being used is being manipulated. I’ve tried “adding” GMT as a string to the end, but it just breaks. Any ideas?

Here’s my strategy for timezones…

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I decided to use this formula. and All your filter time also have the same “+Hours(15)” (I am located in indonesia, so 15 Hours difference)

I’m sorry but forcing the calendar to PST is stupid. If you used GMT, I might be more understanding. I’m in Hong Kong so every event I put on the calendar shows up on the next day. How does the calendar know that today is April 20, but an event on April 9 shows up on April 10? If I use a formula to adjust times (+15 hours), it will be off by an hour when day light savings time changes, so half the year, everything will be off by an hour.

I hope this is on someone’s high priority defect list to fix.

This post should help out:

This definitely helps. Thanks for sharing it. There is still an inherent flaw in the support for timezones, in that the calendars don’t adjust to the user’s timezone. Hopefully, that will come in a future update.