Unanswered

Timezone offset missing

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by DPozzi

124

For business requirements, we should write in a SQL column a date time in 'o' format included the UTC timezone offset value.

I supposed that CONVERT TIME ZONE action with round trip 'o' format could be the solution but I was wrong, it's output miss the timezone. I used a custom formatstring instead "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffffffzzz"

Timezone offset appears but it's +00:00 no matter what destination time zone is.

I would expect 2023-09-29T11:09:45.5042321+02:00 not +00:00 due to the 2-hour current offset of W.Europe Standard Time from UTC.

Anyone could explain or solve?

PS:

I used also:

formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffffffzzz','it-IT')
convertFromUtc(utcNow(),'W. Europe Standard Time','yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffffffzzz')

but makes no difference at all the results are the same.

Categories:

Building flows

I have the same question (0)

All responses (6)

Answers (1)

efialttes 14,756 on at

Like (1)

Report

@DPozzi
I agree with you, looks like a bug. An ugly workaround could be this one:
Add also a new 'Condition' action block to handle +02.00 scenario, or forget Condition action blocks and use Switch action block instead.
Hope this helps
==========

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

Like (1)

Report

@DPozzi I have not been able to get the +02:00 to format with functions. However, there is a way to put together a string while still using system time.

This is not wildly different than the response provided by @efialttes Octopus Teacher

This basically converts the time from Utc to your timezone like normal and uses the [s] sortable format "yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss" and then combines it with output string of the datedifference() function.

Here is the example flow below:

Convert Time Zone and DateDifferenceResults Convert Time Zone and Date Difference

I don't know if the SQL server will have an issue with the additional seconds being added to the string "02:00" vs "02:00:00" .

If so you can format the string to only get the first 6 characters or something.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
efialttes 14,756 on at

Like (1)

Report

@wskinnermctc A much more elegant approach than mine. Thanx for sharing!
==================================================

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
wskinnermctc 6,519 Moderator on at

Like (0)

Report

Yeah, but it is still annoying that the Off Set time function basically doesn't work in Power Automate. You can't even use the drop down they provided in their connector.

Like why have it available if it doesn't work properly?? (Or at least doesn't work intuitively, because I sure couldn't get it to work.)

My bootleg answer is cute, but it actually doesn't work if the timezone is elsewhere because there will be a - minus sign included in the output. So it would end up being +-02:00 which is an error. So it only works if you are for sure of the timezone the results will be.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
DPozzi 124 on at

Like (0)

Report

I agree, I'm so bothered every time I find another power platform bug..

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
efialttes 14,756 on at

Like (1)

Report
@DPozzi
Just in case somebody else reads this thread and is affected by the -/+ issue mentioned by @wskinnermctc, here it is a possible improvement. Please also note you can even select several responses as solution, even from different community members!

This WDL expression will do the magic:
take(if(startsWith(dateDifference(variables('inputDateTime'),body('Convert_time_zone')),'-'),dateDifference(variables('inputDateTime'),body('Convert_time_zone')),concat('+',dateDifference(variables('inputDateTime'),body('Convert_time_zone')))),6)

It works fine no matter we are working on UTC minus X hours...

and also if we are working on UT plus X hours:
I also agree such painpoints make things almost impossible for users with no previous programming experience, and difficult for user even with previous programming background

That's why people like @wskinnermctc make this community great
Thanx!
====

Was this reply helpful? Yes No