Timezone Terror! (Halloween edition)

[SeanR4630]

Greetings all!

I am a new webmaster for an AA area that spans Eastern and Central time zones. We have four intergroups from which we collect TSML data daily that span both. The inconsistency in how intergroup data is being entered is creating some challenges, and our TSML timezone setting may compound them. I would appreciate some clarification on how the TSML timezone setting (in settings) impacts data exported, imported, and viewed. Let's start by assuming that all sites involved have up-to-date TSML plugins.

1. Our area website timezone is set to Eastern. Is it safe to assume that meetings that have a blank timezone are treated as being Eastern? Is this also true for meetings sync'd from intergroups in Eastern AND CENTRAL timezones that have no timezone set?

2. Are meeting times adjusted by web browsers or by the Meeting Guide App based on the user's current time zone? What if the meeting's timezone is blank? Does the timezone setting in the TSML plugin have any impact on this conversion?

3. If we change our current timezone setting in TSML web plugin settings to blank, how will meetings that have no timezone set appear? Will that appearance change when viewed on a client in another timezone?

4. Does setting the timezone in Settings alter the timezone field when data is being pulled, whether it's destined for an area or the Meeting Guide app? How will the Meeting Guide interpret a meeting in which the source TSML plugin's timezone setting is blank AND the meeting has no timezone set?

5. I rembemer seeing a post from I don't know how long ago that says that timezones are interpreted at least partly from the settings of the web server that is being queried for meeting data. Is this still the case?

Your answers will help me determine how many of the hundreds of meetings will need to be updated to include a timezone, and whether switching from Eastern to Blank is appropriate in our situation. It will also guide our requests to the intergroups we are pulling our data from.

Thanks in advance,

Sean

[joshreisner]

hey,

if you are listing across timezones, then the next question is are you using Legacy UI or TSML UI? If Legacy then you don't need to do anything, meeting times are all listed without regard to timezone.

The Meeting Guide app (to jump to question 4) fully ignores whatever timezone you have set. Also the timezone of your server has no bearing / has never had a bearing.

The only way that the WordPress Settings timezone comes into play with Legacy is with the Upcoming Meetings widget / Upcoming meetings view. In that case, you really want that to be set correctly.

If you're using TSML UI then timezones are important, because it puts the meetings in chronological order, and there is an Add to Calendar feature. Since you're listing across timezones then there are two scenarios:

1. You can set your TSML Meetings > Settings > Timezone to Eastern (New York) and meetings will all be treated as Eastern time - you just need to set the timezone for all locations in Central (including all the imported locations). This means that meetings will be displayed on the site in Eastern time (a Noon meeting in Chicago will show up as 1pm on your site). If someone is looking at your site in Chicago at noon the listings would be starting at now aka 1pm). If they add a meeting to their calendar it will be correctly at noon.

2. You can set your TSML Meetings > Settings > Timezone to blank, then all the locations need to have a timezone set or they won't appear. Meetings will show up in the user's timezone. If three people look at the same time they will see the same meetings, but the time will say eg Noon in Chicago, 1pm in NY, 10am in LA.

i hope this helps. I think I addressed each of your questions just not in the same order, sorry

[SeanR4630]

Thanks, Josh, for the clarification. I want to reflect my understanding just for confirmation...

We are using TSML UI, but at least two of the four intergroups from which we pull data are using Legacy UI. Based on observation and your explanation:

• If using the TSML UI AND the settings page has the timezone set to blank, any meetings without a timezone will not appear. This sounds like a bad idea for us, all things considered. We'll leave the Settings page set to Eastern.
• If timezone in Settings is set (e.g., Eastern) and the meeting has no timezone value, the meeting is presented in the web UI as being in that timezone (e.g., Eastern).
• If a different timezone is set for the meeting (e.g., Central) than in Settings, the UI displays both the Eastern time and the Central time below it.
• Based on my observation of the data being collected by the Meeting Guide App, many meeting records lack a timezone value (omitted by us or the intergroup). I can only assume that the app will base the meeting's timezone on what was set in Settings, just like the web UI.
• When we import meeting data from intergroups, their timezone in their website's Settings has no bearing on meeting times. Suppose their meeting record has a timezone, both our web UI and the MG app are correct. However, if left blank, it will be treated like one of our records and presented based on our Setting's timezone value. This would result in someone from their timezone seeing the meeting time as being incorrect.

I hope the above are true, because it means that we don't have to ask the intergroups that share our timezone to make any changes; both we and they can leave it blank. We only have to ensure that any meetings we import that are not in Eastern time zones have "Central" set for them.

[joshreisner]

@SeanR4630 your summary is correct on all points except this:

Based on my observation of the data being collected by the Meeting Guide App, many meeting records lack a timezone value (omitted by us or the intergroup). I can only assume that the app will base the meeting's timezone on what was set in Settings, just like the web UI.

Meeting Guide uses its own method to determine the meeting's timezone (it looks up the address with Google's Time Zone API). Therefore, any timezone provided or not provided, and any website setting (correct or incorrect) will have no bearing on the Meeting Guide app.

[SeanR4630]

Thanks for that clarification. One last question... we have at least one intergroup that is entirely Central time zone, but they occasionally forget to designate the time zone for a meeting. It's not a problem for their site, since they have the setting on their Settings page set to Central, but it's impacting those who view the meeting on our website. Is there a variable or setting that could be applied on their site that would ensure that all meetings have Central set? Either that, or something that would add the Central time setting to their meetings during our daily import sync? Currently, we're having difficulty identifying those meetings and, when found, getting them to apply the change on their site.

[joshreisner]

hm, i'm tempted to say if the timezone is set in TSML then we should use it as a default timezone on all your exported meetings - that would solve your problem and align with how we render the meetings on the site anyway

[SeanR4630]

I couldn't agree more! I wonder if it wouldn't also make sense to set it as the default timezone when creating new meetings. And hey, while you're at it, could you make it so the top of the timezone list contains those found in current meetings, so one doesn't have to scroll through the entire world's timezones each time?

Here's an example of the issue in action (these sites are in different timezones):
https://bowlinggreenaa.org/meetings/?meeting=come-as-u-are-group-3
https://www.area26.net/meetings/come-as-u-are-group-3/

Would your solution be complicated in any way if their site were still using the Legacy UI?

[joshreisner]

yes, good ideas, thanks

and good point that with Legacy UI there is no timezone setting currently, so we'd have to change that