Workspace setting for time zone needs to be observed!
W
William Porter
I created a formula field with the formula "NOW()". In workspace settings, I've correctly indicated that I and my other users are in the United States/Central Time Zone (Chicago). Right now it's 3/17/2023, just after 10PM.
But when I reference that field in an automation to put a timestamp in another field, SmartSuite ignores my workspace setting about time zone, and converts not only the time but the date as well to GMT. Again, right now for me in Texas it's 3/17/2023 10:00PM. But if I trigger that automation right now, it will say it's 3/18/2023 3:00 AM (= GMT-5).
NO NO NO.
I'd add that in my automation I first tried to use the System variable for Today. That has the same problem.
Patrick Link
Yep. Same problem using Make.com with SmartSuite. We often use date fields to store just dates, like the date a request came into our business. But if we don't specify a time along with the date, then the date that is stored is for dd/mm/yyyy at 0:00 GMT, or the very first millisecond the date began in the GMT time zone. We're in Los Angeles, so the date that is stored is actually the prior date in LA, or (dd - 1)/mm/yyyy at 16:00 PST. So, when we try to move that date into Make.com, it shows the prior date, not the date we intended. This is a big problem.
As an example, if the "Date of Request" field in SmartSuite stores 05/20/2025, it's actually storing 05/20/2025 at 0:00 GMT. But that's 05/19/2025 at 16:00 PST. If the time zone for our Make.com account is PST, then Make.com receives the date of 05/20/2025 at 0:00 GMT but interprets it as 05/19/2025 at 16:00 PST. When we use that "date" in Make.com, Make.com uses 05/19/2025 instead of 05/20/2025, like we wanted.
Not good.
Canny AI
Merged in a post:
Global Time Zone Setting
Noah Callen
It would be nice to be able to set the time zone for the workspace and force that time zone for anything time related such as fields and automations.
Jon Darbyshire
Hiya Noah Callen, thanks for this post! I have a few more questions for you:
- Can you provide more details on how you envision the time zone setting impacting your workflow?
- Are there specific fields or automations you're particularly interested in having this feature applied to?
- Would you like this feature to be optional or mandatory for all users in the workspace?
Kaitlin Pierce
I have also noticed this in Automations. My workspace setting is for EST, but every time I make a new automation, it defaults to GMT and has to be fixed. When I forget, it does VERY strange things with time fields.