Podio: which TimeZone is used while setting DateTi

Question

While creating new item or updating existing item using Podio API, and setting DateTime field value to: 2016-10-21 14:15:00 (as example). Which timezone will be used to store this DateTime?

E.g. request:

app_id = <some app with title and date fields>
content = {'title' => 'Date set to "14:15"',
           'date'  => {'start' => '2016-10-21 14:15:00', 
                       'end'   => '2016-10-21 15:00:00'}}
item = Podio::Item.create(app_id, 'fields' => content)

Result:

'start_date_utc' => 2016-10-21
'end'            => 2016-10-21 15:00:00
'end_date'       => 2016-10-21
'end_date_utc'   => 2016-10-21
'start_time_utc' => 12:15:00
'start_time'     => 14:15:00
'start_date'     => 2016-10-21
'start'          => 2016-10-21 14:15:00
'end_time'       => 15:00:00
'end_time_utc'   => 13:00:00
'end_utc'        => 2016-10-21 13:00:00
'start_utc'      => 2016-10-21 12:15:00

Which is great, because I'm seeing same time value 14:15 as I've set 14:15, but how can I control and set specific timezone to this DateTime field?

Answer 1

It appears that Podio API is pretty smart and is aware of my timezone.

Here are couple of examples with requests and results. Setting DateTime field to 14:15:00 being authenticated as different users and as app.

content = {'date' => {'start' => '2016-10-21 14:15:00'}}
Podio.client.authenticate_with_credentials(<user A>, <pass>)
item_created_by_userA = Podio::Item.create(app_id, 'fields' => content)

Podio.client.authenticate_with_credentials(<user B>, <pass>)
item_created_by_userB = Podio::Item.create(app_id, 'fields' => content)

Podio.client.authenticate_with_app(<app ID>, <app token>)
item_created_by_app = Podio::Item.create(app_id, 'fields' => content)

Then values set are:

item_created_by_userA:
'start'     => 2016-10-21 14:15:00
'start_utc' => 2016-10-21 12:15:00

item_created_by_userB:
'start'     => 2016-10-21 14:15:00
'start_utc' => 2016-10-21 21:15:00

item_created_by_app:
'start'     => 2016-10-21 14:15:00
'start_utc' => 2016-10-21 14:15:00

Then value 2016-10-21 14:15:00 is treated by API as 2016-10-21 14:15:00 +0200 because userA timezone is set to UTC+02, and same value is treated by API as 2016-10-21 14:15:00 -0700 because userB timezone is UTC-07 (inside Podio, in account settings). And if authenticated as app, then assumed timezone is UTC

So, if I want to set value 2016-10-21 14:15:00 +0800 (let's pretend I want to set timezone of Kuala Lumpur), then I will have to convert it first to my own timezone (whatever is set in Podio account settings), and then send to Podio API, like this:

date_as_str  = "2016-10-22 14:15:00 +08:00"  # trying to set value with UTC+08
date_with_tz = DateTime.parse(date_as_str).in_time_zone("Europe/Copenhagen") # when Copenhagen is userA's timezone
date_to_send = date_with_tz.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
content = {'date' => {'start' => date_to_send}}
Podio.client.authenticate_with_credentials(<user A>, <pass>)
item_created_by_userA = Podio::Item.create(app_id, 'fields' => content)