Timezone Support

Overview

Lucidity Desktop Version 19.0 and later support over 100 timezones for users. Regardless of where users are in the world once they login all dates and times will be displayed in their local time.

This is an improvement on previous versions where a single timezone was set for all users regardless of their location.

Automatic timezone detection

The users timezone is detected and updated automatically when they login to Lucidity. Once logged in they automatically see dates and times in their local time.

How to manually update the timezone

If required users can change their timezone manually via the web app. There are two places in Lucidity where the users timezone can be changed.

By selecting 'user icon' in the top right ( see screenshot below) that includes an option to switch timezone.

Update via the HR “My Details” page ( see screenshot below).

Technical Notes

The table below explains how timezone is applied in a range of scenarios across Lucidity modules.

Component	Module	Details

Component	Module	Details
Timezone display	Global	Automatic timestamps (created_at and updated_at) when saved will be the actual time based on the timezone set for the user in HR.
Timezone display - Due Date Selectors	Global	All user selectable dates were historically timed to 00:00:00 of the selecting user timezone. Furthermore, their relevant events such as expiry of documents (and due dates) would be at the start of the selected date (i.e. 00:00:00 or user timezone) and not at the end of the selected date. This has been updated to 04:00:00 of the selecting user timezone. Furthermore, their relevant events such as expiry of documents (and due dates) would have been at the start of the selected date (i.e. 00:00:00 or user timezone and has been updated to 04:00:00) and not at the end of the selected date(as outlined above). However, some of these events run via scheduled crons and hence the time the cron runs also impacts these events.
User Timezone Setting	Global	Default timezone is set to users local machine time. Upon successful login, if a change in time-zone is detected compared to previously set value then; Timezone is updated in the database for user account. User is notified in the status message at the top of the page If the user is redirected to another module due to permissions, the timezone change status will still be displayed on the next page. Timestamps displayed on the page are updated accordingly to the timezone selected by the user, or by the local device timezone as detected on login. For the Lucidity Mobile Application, device timezone is used.
Timezone display - Daylight Savings Time	Global	Perth (as well as some other states) do not observe daylight savings time (Oct to April), thus when comparing records during this time (ie Sun, 1 Oct 2023 – Sun, 7 Apr 2024) Local time is advanced one hour, when daylight saving commences and put back one hour when it ceases. Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia do not observe daylight saving thus they will see changes on these records during this time as opposed to viewing the records outside these dates. Note: Daylight Savings is also observed in the below regions globally. United Kingdom : (31 March 2024 - 27 October 2024) Mainland USA : (10 March 2024 - 3 November 2024)
User Timezone Setting - Selector	HR	Time-zone selector has been added for users within HR under “My Details”. “My Details” is also available by selecting user avatar ( icons). New timezone selector field added to Induction > self create account page. New timezone selector field added to HR Manage Pages.
Competency Reports and Filters	Competency	Almost all of the reports have various datetime fields (either in filters, or in report, or both). All dates respect the local timezone of the user except for date of birth which is only formatted.
Actions - Due Date	Global, Actions	When action due dates are set the time they are due must also be set. For users in adjacent timezones that are one or two hours apart it can become confusing when viewing due dates for actions as they can be different even though their timezones are only slightly different. Consider a scenario where a user in one state is 2-3 hours ahead of another. If late at night one user may see the action is due today and the other sees the action as due tomorrow. To avoid problematic scenarios like this Lucidity deliberately avoids setting event dates at midnight ( 00:00:00). Instead they are set at 4am (04:00:00). That way a user 3 hours behind will see the same due date a as a user in a timezone 3 hours ahead of them. Typically within the same continent timezones are not more than 4 hours different so the system is designed so users in Australia, North America, or Europe will see the same due date for actions..
Actions - Auto creation of repeat Action (Recurring Action)	Global, Actions	The new action will be auto-created with the next due date for the same timezone for the same the original due date (or the timezone of the last person who edits the date as outlined below). It should now generate the new action and set its timezone based on the original timezone of the closed action. If the repeating action Due Date/Occurrence is modified by another user on a different time-zone, The generated repeating action will now be saved based on the latest timezone it was modified and saved from.
Date & Time Combination Fields	Incident	If time is not provided and date is, then the time will default to 4am of the user’s timezone (i.e. start of the day as new rules). If date is not provided and time is, the date is set to the current date of the user.

Exceptions to timezone changes

Scenario/Component/ Exception	Module	Details

Scenario/Component/ Exception	Module	Details
Scheduled Email Reports	Reports	Timezone filters do not apply to scheduled email reports, from any module. This is due to the way excel reports are generated. Scheduled reports can be sent to a large number of users across timezones and it’s currently not possible to customise the report to the timezone of each recipient of the report.
Shared Reports (ie user generated)	Reports	Timezone filters apply to the reports from the generated user time-zone (ie source of origin)
Datetime in the footer of print documents.	PDF	The PDF Footer is currently based on the server time, and not the user set timezone when printing.
“Generated On” widget	Competency	Dashboard > Widgets > “Generated On” timestamp on hover over refresh button.
Remote Tapping Users time-stamp.	OnSite	Remote tapping of users will save the datetime of tap-in based on the timezone of the person filling the form and not the person being tapped in.
Saved Filter Emails (from any “Find” page)	Global, Notifications	These reports cant have timezone applied because the system sends 1 email to all recipients as cc or bcc. So individual user timezone cant be applied to the reports sent.
Scheduled notifications via Access Templates	Access, Notifications	User timezone cannot be applied to these, these are also sent as 1 email to multiple recipients instead of individual custom emails.
Event based notifications (created, updated, deleted, etc)	Global, Notifications	Just like scheduled notifications notifications also run via access notification templates and read the recipients from there.