Date headaches

RE: Date headaches

Shubham Aware — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 06:52:56 GMT

Good to know.

RE: Date headaches

grandhiritusha — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 06:51:54 GMT

Thanks Shubham, that worked.

RE: Date headaches

Stefan Helzle — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:57:18 GMT

That's bad. I do not know of a good solution and suggest to open a support case with Appian to discuss this.

RE: Date headaches

Shubham Aware — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:57:09 GMT

I would recommend Change the Record Type field from "Date and Time" to just "Date" to match your interface and stop the timezone shifts.

RE: Date headaches

grandhiritusha — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:09:23 GMT

Hi , Stefan

Its UTC -7:00 .

Thanks

RE: Date headaches

Stefan Helzle — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 12:57:30 GMT

Is your DB set to GMT/UST?

RE: Date headaches

grandhiritusha — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 11:28:54 GMT

Hi Shubham Aware

So, it's same for the record type as well?

I'm using a!datefield in interface and

In Record type we have date and time field configured for the column and

In Oracle SQL database its again date field which is configured for the same column .

Where I'm facing the same issue as Marco

Could you please suggest?

RE: Date headaches

Mike Schmitt — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:02:38 GMT

[quote userid="298571" url="~/discussions/f/data/39589/date-headaches/151001"]I'm getting either EST or EDT on the DB[/quote]

How is that happening? If you use any standard funcitonality to store a standard timestamp into the DB, the datetime value should be stored as UST, unless you first applied an incorrect conversion, or something else unusual has happened to it first.

Edit: I now see your followup comment to Stefan explaining that the DB is not in cloud and hardcoded to be EST-centric. In that case I'm not sure what to do other than to make sure all in-Appian settings are set such that it expects everything at all to be in EST.

RE: Date headaches

Marco Tacca — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:00:26 GMT

[quote userid="50400" url="~/discussions/f/data/39589/date-headaches/150990"]The "time zone in the db" is always accurate, as it's always GMT/UST. What you must straighten out is what the end user sees and what gets saved/retrieved, and often, this goes hand-in-hand with the developer's understanding thereof.[/quote]

The frustration over here is that it ISN'T always GMT in the DB. If it was doing that, I wouldn't be having all these headaches with time. I'm getting either EST or EDT on the DB.

RE: Date headaches

Mike Schmitt — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 14:06:52 GMT

You have to remember that some date/timestamps are stamped with a timezone and some are not. A lot of the confusion comes into play when dealing with an inherently non-timezone-stamped time value (like "today()") but then dealing with that in the context of a time rather than as a date, when it inherently gets timestamped - and, of course, Appian treats all timestamps behind-the-scenes as GMT/UST, other than how they're displayed to the end user - this is where things like GMT and LOCAL come into play.

[quote userid="298571" url="~/discussions/f/data/39589/date-headaches/150971"]I want the time zone in the db to at least be accurate[/quote]

The "time zone in the db" is always accurate, as it's always GMT/UST. What you must straighten out is what the end user sees and what gets saved/retrieved, and often, this goes hand-in-hand with the developer's understanding thereof.

RE: Date headaches

Stefan Helzle — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 08:12:25 GMT

Here we go! I suggest to contact Appian to discuss this and how to manage it.

RE: Date headaches

Marco Tacca — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 18:44:19 GMT

I understand that Appian treats datetimes only in GMT. The DB server is not Appian cloud and not in GMT, which is what is causing all the trouble. I don't have any control over the server though. It's run by the client and they want it to be EST.

So what do I do about it?

RE: Date headaches

Stefan Helzle — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 18:04:45 GMT

Do you use the Appian cloud database? If not, did you make sure that your DB server runs in GMT?

Appian treats dates/datetimes only in GMT! Internally! As soon as such a value becomes visible, it is translated into the users timezone.

It is simple, but you can build yourself a ugly trap once you try to translate dates yourself.

RE: Date headaches

Marco Tacca — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:47:40 GMT

I actually read through that before posting, but my problem here is that no matter how I adjust the time, it records as EDT/EST, even if the time is inaccurate. If I use a date picker, it will translate that to local time, making it a day earlier, and even if I use GMT() to translate it to the right date, the timezone it records is still EDT/EST. I want the time zone tag to be correct for the time I'm recording and it seems bizarre to me that these time zone adjustment functions like local() and gmt() don't allow you to set the time zone, just add/subtract time.

RE: Date headaches

Marco Tacca — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:38:30 GMT

The thing is they don't change the time zone, just the time, which makes things sticky. Say it's 4:00 now. I use the now() function and appian returns 4pm EDT. If I use the local() function, it gives me 12pm EDT. wrapping now() in the GMT function gives me 8pm EDT. They all say EDT regardless of the actual time zone that is being recorded. I want the time zone in the db to at least be accurate

RE: Date headaches

Mike Schmitt — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 16:19:24 GMT

The functions local() and gmt() are your friends. It's tricky to remember how and when you can/want/need to use each, but with practice you will get used to it.

RE: Date headaches

Stefan Helzle — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 15:31:26 GMT

https://appian.rocks/2023/02/13/working-with-time-in-appian/

RE: Date headaches

Harsha Sharma — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 17:44:35 GMT

In your process model , that writes record to this table , can you check the time zone is GMT in the process properties-> time zone . Also confirm that the checkbox ‘Override with initiators time zone’ is unchecked. If its checked then the data will be stored as per the process initiator’s time zone setting instead of GMT so you should have it unchecked! Let me know how it goes.

RE: Date headaches

Shubham Aware — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 16:30:55 GMT

You're using DateTime instead of Date type. DateTime gets timezone-converted (causing your 4-hour shift), but Date doesn't. Switch your CDT fields from DateTime to Date type and use a!dateField() instead of a!dateTimeField().
For existing data, display with text(gmt(ri!dateTimeValue), "MM/dd/yyyy") to bypass timezone conversion. For CSV imports, use todate() not todatetime().