Time Zone

3 Sep 20204 minutes to read

Schedule allows you create appointments in various time zones and display them in users’ time zone or any other time zone. You can use a time zone in the following four different ways:

  • Create appointments in different time zones
  • Display appointments based on the client’s time zone
  • Display appointments based on schedule time zone
  • Display appointments at the same time everywhere regardless of client’s time zone

Create appointments in different time zones

You can create appointments at different time zones using the StartTimeZone and EndTimeZone properties of ScheduleAppointment. An appointment’s start time and end time are calculated based on the given time zone information for the start time and end time. You can set different time zones to the StartTimeZone and EndTimeZone properties.

You can use the StartTime and EndTime properties of ScheduleAppointment to get the exact start time and end time of an appointment. By using the ActualStartTime and ActualEndTime properties, you can get exact appointment rendering time.

appointment.StartTimeZone = "India Standard Time";
appointment.EndTimeZone = "India Standard Time";
	  
NSDate exactStartTime = appointment.StartTime;
NSDate exactEndTime = appointment.EndTime;

NOTE

  • If the recurring appointment is converted to another time zone, then the whole sequence will be recalculated according to the new time zone information.
  • If you create an all-day appointment, its start time and end time will be set to 12 A.M. and 12 A.M. by default, so time zone is not applicable for all-day appointments.
  • Schedule supports daylight saving time.
  • The time zone support is applicable for custom appointments too, so you need to map the corresponding property.
  • You can use TimeZone for custom appointments by mapping the StartTimeZone and EndTimeZone custom properties of AppointmentMapping.

Display Appointments based on client’s time zone

You can display the appointments based on the client’s local time zone in schedule. For example, consider a scenario that you are in North Carolina and you want to set up a meeting at 10 A.M. on North Carolina time. You have colleagues in London and Chennai, and they also need to participate. The time for this meeting will be 3 P.M. (15:00) in London and 5.30 A.M. in Chennai. When you each view your calendar, you need to see the appointment displayed relative to your local time zones 5.30 A.M., 10 A.M., and 3 P.M., respectively. It can be achieved by setting schedule time zone to default (it will consider your device’s local time zone as schedule time zone) and appointment’s time zone to Eastern Standard Time (North Carolina) [as you are in North Carolina and its time zone is Eastern Standard Time].

Display appointments based on schedule time zone

You can set specific time zone to schedule using the TimeZone property of schedule. On this scenario, the appointments will be displayed in UTC time when the StartTimeZone and EndTimeZone properties of ScheduleAppointment are set to null. The appointments will be displayed in UTC time based on the given schedule time zone.

schedule.TimeZone = "GMT Standard Time";

Display appointments at same time everywhere regardless of client’s time zone

You can display appointments at the same time everywhere without considering the time zone when you set the TimeZone property of schedule, the StartTimeZone, and EndTimeZone properties of ScheduleAppointment to null. The appointments will be displayed based on the given StartTime and EndTime of appointment everywhere without considering the time zone.

Updating StartTime and EndTime after drag and drop appointment based on Time Zone.

After rescheduling an appointment using drag and drop, appointment’s start and end time value will be updated based on schedule time zone and appointment’s time zone.

For an example, consider, your local time zone is India Standard Time, if you drag an appointment from 9 AM and drop this on 1 PM and the schedule’s TimeZone is not set and the appointment’s StartTimeZone and EndTimeZone has set as AUS Central Standard Time (Darwin) then appointment’s start time and end time value will be converted from Local time zone to appointment time zone and the appointment’s start time will be saved at 9 AM,

if you set schedule’s TimeZone as AUS Central Standard Time (Darwin) and the appointment’s StartTimeZone and EndTimeZone as Central Standard Time (Mexico) then the appointment’s start time and end time value has converted from schedule’s time zone to appointment time zone and the appointment’s start time will be saved at 3.30 AM of next day,
if you set schedule’s TimeZone as AUS Central Standard Time (Darwin) and appointment’s time zone was not set then the appointment’s start time and end time value converted from schedule time zone to UTC time zone and the appointment’s start time will be saved at 10.30 PM.