Introduction
The time zone handling in imaging has been significantly updated to improve accuracy and efficiency in document processing. The recent changes in how the system processes time zone offsets for images and documents in production, implemented in Reveal, introduce a more precise method for managing time zones on a per-document basis, ensuring more accurate and context-sensitive results in image production.
Overview of the Time Zone Update
Previously, the system applied a global time zone setting for all production jobs, which sometimes led to discrepancies when a specific time zone (e.g., Pacific Standard Time, PST) was set in the document database but the image production still defaulted to UTC.
To address this, the system was updated to calculate time zone offsets on a per-document basis. This allows the system to account for each document's individual time zone setting, ensuring that image production reflects the correct local time zone for each document.
How Time Zone Handling Works Now
The updated process for calculating and applying the UTC offset follows several steps:
Use UTC Offset from Processing - If a document has a valid UTC offset set during processing, this value is used directly for image production.
Master Date Fields - If the UTC offset is unavailable, the system will check specific fields in the document:
MASTERDATETIME, MASTERDATE, MASTERTIME: These fields, if populated, are used to determine the time zone based on the project’s time zone.
Sent Date Fields - If the master date fields are not available, the system will check the sent date fields:
SENT_DATETIME, SENT_DATE, SENT_TIME.
Last Modified Date/Time Fields - If neither of the above sets of fields are available, the system will fall back to the last modified date and time fields:
LAST_MODIFIED_DATE, LAST_MODIFIED_TIME.
Final Fallback - If no date/time fields are set or the UTC offset cannot be determined, the system will use the time zone specified in the project’s case settings as the final fallback.
This multi-step process ensures that time zone handling is as accurate as possible, aligning document production with the correct local time zone.
Common Issues
Some issues may arise if certain date/time fields are missing or incomplete. For example, if a production job lacks fields like SENT_DATETIME, SENT_DATE, etc., the system may default to UTC, even if a specific time zone (e.g., PST) is set. To avoid such discrepancies, it is essential to ensure that these fields are populated.
Key Takeaways
Time zone handling is now based on a per-document offset, using specific fields within the document to determine the correct time zone.
Missing date/time fields like SENT_DATETIME, SENT_DATE, etc., can result in UTC being used as the default time zone.
The fallback logic ensures that if no document-specific time zone information is available, the project-level time zone is used.
The shift to per-document time zone handling marks a major improvement to the imaging process. By ensuring that the relevant date/time fields are populated, the system will deliver more accurate and context-sensitive time zone offsets for image production.
For further assistance or questions, please reach out to the Reveal Technical Support team who can help with ensuring the accurate application of time zone handling in all production jobs.