Set dates and time zones

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With business taking place in all areas of the globe, it's essential that you are familiar with your options for date and time fields and time zones.

Date and time fields

Three types of date and time fields correspond to different data types in the database:

• Combined date/time fields - These fields are preferred for entering date and time data. The utcdatetime data type stores time and date data in a single field in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is, within about one second, mean solar time at zero degrees longitude; it doesn't observe daylight saving time. Time zones around the world are expressed by using positive or negative offsets from UTC. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The current version of UTC is defined by International Telecommunications Union Recommendation (ITU-R TF.460-6).

• Date fields - These fields are used to enter dates only. The date data type stores a day, month, and year. However, these values aren't stored in UTC and can't be associated with a time zone.

• Time fields - These fields are used to display the number of seconds that have elapsed since midnight on the current date. The timeofDay data type stores an integer value. Time values aren't stored in UTC.

Time zones

To express UTC times in the local time, you need to provide a time zone. The time zone controls the offset from UTC that is the equivalent of the local time. For example, the offset for Moscow is UTC+3. Your preferred time zone is first set according to the Microsoft Windows locale of your computer, although it might have been changed by an administrator. Your preferred time zone is used only when you are displaying combined dates and times. To set the preferred time zone for a user, go to the Users page, which shows the list of system users. Select the user that you want to set the preferred time zone for and then select User options. On the Language and region tab, select the preferred time zone.