Feature request: Timezone display/setting

Currently the calendar adjusts the display of events based on the time zone setting of the user's computer. I think that's a bit confusing. Particularly when a member travels. I suspect that cell phones will automatically change their timezones based on the cell tower (which may be in a different zone if they are close to the edge).

My suggestions are:
1) Place a "All times listed are ...." on the main calendar page. This prevents surprises.
2) Allow users to "fix" their display to a set time zone. I think this will be particularly beneficial to traveling members who are likely to think in "home" time, not "where I am now" time.

I agree. This is very confusing for members traveling. When they check their stake/ward's online calendar all the times of events are "wrong" because they reflect the time zone they are visiting and not the time zone of the actual location. The calendar should always reflect the actual time zone for the area it represents. It doesn't make sense and is very confusing otherwise. Most people know they need to either add or delete hours depending on time zones. What people are not aware of is that the online calendar changes times as members change time zones.

This becomes even more confusing when an email reminder is sent using the incorrect time zone. I have to actively change the time when I am in the correct time zone in order to get the email notification to send the correct time.

This needs to be changed quickly. Is there a reason why calendar events are based on anything other than the local time zone?

judson.wooters wrote:This needs to be changed quickly.

It's been this way since the Calendar was developed a few years ago, so I really doubt that it would be changed quickly.

judson.wooters wrote:Is there a reason why calendar events are based on anything other than the local time zone?

Although I certainly understand why many people would prefer that times were displayed in the unit's time zone, I can think of some reasons why it works this way:

• Some stakes span two time zones
• There could be Sync implications; cell phones and many other mobile devices change time zones automatically, and events with their alerts would need to change as well.

Regardless of the reasons, this would not be a trivial change. All changes have to be prioritized by importance and available resources. But you're welcome to use the Feedback link on LDS.org to submit your request.

aebrown wrote:There could be Sync implications; cell phones and many other mobile devices change time zones automatically, and events with their alerts would need to change as well.

I think that's an argument against it as it makes things confusing.

Instead, I'd substitute syncing church-wide events such as general conference. If it wasn't for that, I'd think we could do without time zones completely, just like Calendar 1.0.

Time is absolute with respect to the stake's or ward's time zone exclusive of the person's temporary location. For example, if I enter an event for a ward in England, and I am in Utah, do we really expect the event to take place with respect to MST or MDT?

I am fairly certain major Church events (e.g., General Conference) are with respect to MST/MDT regardless of the timezone of the electronic device entering the event even though the Church spans all timezones.

I believe this example is scalable. A stake has a stake center just as the Church has headquarters. Therefore, while not perfect, we can assume the stake crossing multiple timezones has the timezone of its building location since many events will be based on that location...hence stake center. Wards would be similar. If someone views or modifies events for the stake or ward, it would be relative to that geographic marker and not based on a single person's temporary location.

I will make the suggestion.

russellhltn wrote:

aebrown wrote:There could be Sync implications; cell phones and many other mobile devices change time zones automatically, and events with their alerts would need to change as well.

I think that's an argument against it as it makes things confusing.

I don't understand your point. If my device is going to give me an alarm 15 minutes before an event starts at 7:00pm Mountain Time, but I happen to be in Eastern Time, that alarm has to be at 8:45pm on my device. It makes absolutely no sense for it to be at 6:45pm on my device.

Such alarms will not be broadly useful, since most events can't be attended by those in a different time zone. But perhaps it is for some presidency meeting that I need to call in to. In that case, I need my device to remind me when the event is actually happening, and since my device is in my temporary time zone, that reminder has to be relative to my temporary time zone.

russellhltn wrote:Instead, I'd substitute syncing church-wide events such as general conference. If it wasn't for that, I'd think we could do without time zones completely, just like Calendar 1.0.

That's yet another example.

aebrown wrote:

russellhltn wrote:

aebrown wrote:There could be Sync implications; cell phones and many other mobile devices change time zones automatically, and events with their alerts would need to change as well.

I think that's an argument against it as it makes things confusing.

I don't understand your point. If my device is going to give me an alarm 15 minutes before an event starts at 7:00pm Mountain Time, but I happen to be in Eastern Time, that alarm has to be at 8:45pm on my device. It makes absolutely no sense for it to be at 6:45pm on my device.

Alarms? I'm lost. We're talking about calendar on lds.org, not LDS Tools.

I believe the complaint at hand is the lds.org calendar doesn't display times as expected.

russellhltn wrote:Alarms? I'm lost. We're talking about calendar on lds.org, not LDS Tools.

I believe the complaint at hand is the lds.org calendar doesn't display times as expected.

I never said anything about LDS Tools. I'm talking about when the calendar on LDS.org is synced to a mobile device, which then may have alarms for the synced events. If the system only understands events in terms of the local time zone of the building or unit, then I'm theorizing that such a change might have implications for synced calendars.

That would depend on the time zone listed as part of the iCal file. Currently I think the iCal time zone is GMT and all times are shifted to that.

But that's a separate issue from how times are displayed on the website. Changing the times to the viewer's computer TZ was a technically interesting approach, but most people are expecting to see times local to the unit, not whatever TZ they happen to be traveling in.

russellhltn wrote:Changing the times to the viewer's computer TZ was a technically interesting approach, but most people are expecting to see times local to the unit, not whatever TZ they happen to be traveling in.

It's not like the approach chosen by the developers is unheard of. Microsoft Outlook, for example, displays all its times in the time zone of the computer, regardless of where the central Exchange server is located.

At this point you're hearing all the complaints from the people who don't like the choice made for displaying the time zone of the computer. If it's simply changed to be the time zone of the unit, you'll then have the opportunity to hear the complaints from the other side. Which group is larger? I don't know.

Google Calendar chose to make the time zone a user setting. So even if I'm looking at a shared calendar that contains events that occur in a different time zone, I can choose my own time zone for display. And if my computer goes to a different time zone, and even if I change the time zone setting on my computer or mobile device, the Google Calendar timezone setting remains how I set it until I manually change it. Personally, I would prefer that implementation, as it seems more predictable.

aebrown wrote:Google Calendar chose to make the time zone a user setting. So even if I'm looking at a shared calendar that contains events that occur in a different time zone, I can choose my own time zone for display. And if my computer goes to a different time zone, and even if I change the time zone setting on my computer or mobile device, the Google Calendar timezone setting remains how I set it until I manually change it. Personally, I would prefer that implementation, as it seems more predictable.

Agreed. A bear minimum, I'd like to see a notation in the corner somewhere what timezone is being used to minimize the surprise factor.

Oddly enough, that's pretty close to what the OP requested. <grin>

aebrown wrote:

judson.wooters wrote:This needs to be changed quickly.

It's been this way since the Calendar was developed a few years ago, so I really doubt that it would be changed quickly.

Yes, "quickly" is all just perspective. I was trying to drive home a point of frustration in our Stake. Sorry if that came across as demanding.

My assistant Exec Secretary was in charge of our calendar for several months. He travels to Africa several months out of the year and while there I would send him emails to update an event. Here is an example exchange (this happened many many times for months):

Bro C -- could you setup a training meeting event for July 10th @ 7 PM in the Stake Center?

He would then setup a meeting for July 19th @ 7 PM in the Stake Center (from Africa). But, what would it look like for the entire rest of the Stake in Texas? It would say, Training Meeting, July 10th @ 1 PM in the Stake Center. I would see the time difference, know what happened, and correct it for him. He would then get on the next night, see that it now showed (for him in Africa) July 11th @ 1 AM, so he'd change it back. He's not terribly tech savvy, so this went on for months, despite many many conversations, screenshots and trainings on how to get around it. I finally just stopped sending him calendar update requests as it was doubling my work load.

I think a feature to be able to toggle between local and user time would solve all of this.

The above scenarios describe the issues very well. It's frustrating to have parents get confused when they get an email saying we are meeting at 9pm instead of 6pm because the lds.org calendar notification is based on the timezone of the computer on which I am working as opposed to the unit's local time where the parents and youth reside.

I recommend leaving the timezone shifts to the user and keep the lds.org calendar timezone tied to the unit.

Another solution would be to show the unit's timezone and the computer's timezone next to each other on the left-hand side. Outlook provides a capability like this. For the lds.org calendar, it could be the default view if or when the local and the unit's timezones differ. The calendar would operate the same as always but provide user feedback indicating when the calendar is showing a different timezone. This would also address my concerns...except, the notification email will still go out using the local timezone and not the unit's timezone...

judson.wooters wrote:Bro C -- could you setup a training meeting event for July 10th @ 7 PM in the Stake Center?

He would then setup a meeting for July 19th @ 7 PM in the Stake Center (from Africa).

Sort of ironic that I mistyped the first date in my example. It should read that he would setup for "July 10th"

judson.wooters wrote:Sort of ironic that I mistyped the first date in my example. It should read that he would setup for "July 10th"

That would be quite a time zone shift.

My challenge is that I work on three different devices and, for various annoying reasons, they function in three different time zones. So I have two challenges.

I always have to be very careful to remember which device I am using when I attempt to determine the correct local starting time of an event.

I also have to be very careful to remember which device I am using when I add a new event or update an existing one.

lajackson wrote:My challenge is that I work on three different devices and, for various annoying reasons, they function in three different time zones.

Would one of them be a cell phone that keeps linking to a cell tower in another time zone?

russellhltn wrote:

lajackson wrote:My challenge is that I work on three different devices and, for various annoying reasons, they function in three different time zones.

Would one of them be a cell phone that keeps linking to a cell tower in another time zone?

Home computer (almost always correct), work computer (usually an hour later), cell phone (usually an hour earlier).