Time zones and published calendars

[Anne]

I have a calendar that will be viewed by people all over the US, Canada and Australia. Obviously, there are several different time zones involved here.

So, when I say *I* am in Eastern, but I go and fill in information regarding a seminar in Colorado (Mountain time) that is from 8am – 4pm, if they look at it in New Jersey (Eastern time), is it going to show 8am-4pm Eastern, or 8am-4pm Mountain time? I am confused on this!

[Anne]

Your message has two great issues: 1) related to how your viewers may need to change time zones to view event and 2) how to best do the data entry as you enter in seminars in different locations.

First issue: How can viewers alter the time zone of the published calendar.

You said: "I have a calendar that will be viewed by people all over the US, Canada and Australia. Obviously, there are several different time zones involved here."

This is good issue to consider. You might want to state at the top of your calendar that this calendar is published in eastern time zone, along with instructions for how to change to another time zone. A published calendar can only be set to one, default time zone. This way all events will be displayed in that time zone. In this scenario we will assume the calendar is set to Eastern.

Note: If you would like to allow event based time zones, please contact Trumba Support and they can look at enabling Event Based time zones for your account.This means that if your calendar is set to Eastern and you want to add seminars in Colorado, by having event based time zone enabled allows you to enter the seminar in Colorado by entering the event time as 8am-4pm in Mountain time. When you save the event, it will display on the published calendar as 10am-6pm Eastern. With event based time zone, the calendar converts the time for you and adjusts for daylight saving time as appropriate.

Second issue: How to best do your data entry for events originating in multiple time zones.

You also said: "So, when I say *I* am in Eastern, but I go and fill in information regarding a Seminar in Colorado that is from 8am – 4pm, if they look at it in New Jersey, is it going to show 8-4 Eastern, or CO time?"

If you have seminars in a couple different locations, I'd urge you to make a calendar for each location that is set with the appropriate time zone. This would allow you to put the Seminar on the Colorado calendar that is set to Mountain Time and then when you view the events mixed in or published they will be automatically be converted. We also offer Event Based time zones, so instead of creating a calendar per time zone, you keep your published calendar in one time zone (Eastern) but when you add events you will be able to select the time zone of the event and enter in the time the event start in the time zone of the event. The event will still convert and be displayed in the time zone of the published calendar, however you would also embed the TimeZone Control Spud on your published calendar page so the site visitor can select their time zone. The calendar will then refresh and display all of the event times in the time zone selected.

I also want to offer you two links to help topics that would be useful:

Add time zones to events - https://www.trumba.com/help/timezones_events.aspx
About time zones - https://www.trumba.com/help/timezoneswork.html