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What's the deal with the Time Zone column type?

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Posted on by lachlanP

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I have some datetimes which are stored as UTC time. Usually this works well - when a user views the datetime through the Portal, Form, etc. it automatically converts to their local time zone.

Now I have a flow which sends out an email including a UTC datetime field as dynamic content. The datetime doesn't get converted as it isn't being viewed by a signed in user.

I want to convert it manually based on the recipient (recipient email is pulled from the contact table, so I have the contact record). I can see that the Contact table has a column called Time zone. This column doesn't seem to work. It seems to behave like a lookup column but doesn't have any options. I cant type in the field or use the drop down arrow to make a selection. I've tried both in the table itself as well as in an edit form.

How is this column type supposed to work? I can see that Time Zone is a full on data-type and I can create new columns with type = Time Zone, but they all behave like this. Is this just not implemented? It would be really useful for me if it works.

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Mira Ghaly 11,413 Moderator on at

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@lachlanP

So do you set the timezone on your contacts?

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lachlanP 107 on at

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I am trying to set the time zone on my contacts so I can use it to format the time properly when sending them emails.

I cannot set the time zone on the contacts because the column wont accept any input.

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Mira Ghaly 11,413 Moderator on at

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@lachlanP

I will try on my end and will let you know!

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Mira Ghaly 11,413 Moderator on at

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@lachlanP

I checked this column and it is related to the Powerapps Portals and it is a whole number and looks like it is used internally by portals so as an alternative try to create a new table for Time Zone and you can use it in your conversion and then add a lookup to the timezone from this table.

You can use the link below to generate your timezone table:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/embedded/gg154758(v=winembedded.80)?redirectedfrom=MSDN

So in your flow as well you use it to format your date field to the required time zone

The highlighted in yellow should be used in your power automate flow to convert your time zone

Hope this makes sense!

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lachlanP 107 on at

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Thanks for the reply @Mira_Ghaly ,

I'm still a bit confused. Are you saying I need to create a new table called timezone and populate it with those values, then the timezone column types will lookup from that table?

It also says at the top of that page that it is no longer being updated. Does this mean MS has switched it's strategy for timezones? Is there a different strategy I should be using?

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