Time Zone Shifting for Data Processing

For some implementations, certain data files may contain timestamps that do not match the space's overall time zone. For example, some applications actually store timestamps in GMT, but present the information to users in an accepted corporate time zone such as EST or PST. In some cases, you may want to leave such data as is and load it without any time shift. For other cases, Infor provides the ability to transform all datetime fields in a file to a pre-defined space (or corporate) time zone using a space property called Processing Time Zone.

Using Time Zone Shifting

The Infor Server Local Time is in CST, however this does not mean your data will be transformed to CST by default. Time shifts are solely based on differences between the space's processing time zone and each source's input time zone, and all source input time zones are marked as Same as Processing Time Zone by default. Infor recommends that you change the space's Processing Time Zone to a specific time zone if you would like to apply time zone shifts to your input data.

Unless the data source time zone and processing time zone are set to different values, no time shifts will be applied to any dates at the time of either processing or querying.

Processing Time Zone	Data Source Time Zone	Expected Behavior
Server Local Time	Same as Processing Time Zone	Dates do not change when persisted or queried.
Server Local Time	Any Other Time Zone	Dates shifted when persisted, and shifted dates are shown when queried.
Any Other Time Zone	Same as Processing Time Zone	Dates do not change when persisted or queried.
Any Other Time Zone	Time Zone different than Processing Time Zone	Dates shifted when persisted, and shifted dates are shown when queried.

Tip: Time zone shifting is not allowed for scripted sources due to the fact that users may accidentally apply time zone shifts to data more than once. Infor recommends that you first apply time zone shifts to the underlying base sources that the script is based on.

Space Processing Time Zone

On the Modify Properties page under the Manage Space tab in the Admin module, is a property named Processing Time Zone. This is the space's overall processing time zone for all input files. The difference between this time zone and each source's time zone is how Infor determines how much of an offset to apply when loading datetime fields into the system. Note that this setting cannot be changed once data has been processed; it can only be set in a space before data has been processed.

Source Input Time Zone

You can set the time zone of the data source in the Admin module Define Sources - Manage Sources data source Properties tab. Use the Time Zone menu to specify the input time zone for the source data. By default, this is marked as Same as Processing Time Zone as shown below. This means that no time shift will be applied to the data when it is processed.

If you want to apply an offset to this data in order to make it conform to the time zone of the data in the rest of the space, make the following two changes:

Change the Processing Time Zone setting for the space (on the Modify Properties page under the Manage Space tab) to your corporate time zone.

Important: This setting can only be changed before data has been processed in the space.

Change the input time zone of the source you want to offset to the time zone that the source's data is in (using the Time Zone menu in the Properties tab of Manage Sources).