topic Re: calculate time zone or UTC in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

calculate time zone or UTC

JosephRogan2 — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 17:09:03 GMT

Hello, I'm trying to calculate a custom string from a date and time using the now() function. This gives my the local time, which is fine, kinda. What I need to know is the timezone of this local time, or the zulu time. I'm using the info found at:

https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2016/04/17/dates-and-time-in-survey123-for-arcgis

It would be great if there was a %timezone or something that returned the UTC offset but there isn't. Is there any way to calculate this? I'm wondering if it could be calculated out of a decimal date or something, but I'm limited to what I can use as a calculation in Survey123.

My goal is to write a military date-time group, EXAMPLE: 091630Z JUL 11 represents 1630 UTC on 9 July 2011. There is more to my final formatting than that though, saving it as a date/time object won't help.

Thanks!

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

Anonymous User — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 03:04:14 GMT

Hi Joseph,

We do not currently have a property or parameter to return the UTC offset or timezone with a date/time question or in a string as part of a calculation. We have an open enhancement request to support UTC offset parameters and I have added your comments to the issue.

Regards,

Phil.

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

JamesTedrick — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 18:04:04 GMT

Hi Jospeh,

With 2.7, Survey123 has just introduced UTC offset recording:

The function pulldata("@property", 'utcoffset') can now be used to capture and record the UTC time zone offset of the device.

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

Anonymous User — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 20:37:18 GMT

James,

Can you share an example or has this function been added to a sample template?

Thanks

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

JamesTedrick — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 20:39:59 GMT

Hi Damien,

You will find the function at the bottom of the updated 'Date & Time' template. It presents the offset in decimal hours (most timezones are an even number of hours off of UTC) to facilitate the addition. True addition in Survey123 will be to add the offset value to the time recorded to create a 'fake' local time when downloading from AGOL.

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

RobertWeber — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 19:54:48 GMT

James is there an example of this calculation somewhere? I know it should be pretty straightforward to apply the utcoffset to now() but I am confused as to formatting of these values.

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

IsmaelChivite — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:52:21 GMT

quick sample here. Do not forget to keep your UTC date as a string.

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

JoeFlannery — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 13:32:20 GMT

Ismael:

I am using the XLS Form Type "start" and "end" to capture the date and time the form was opened and then submitted. The times recorded for start and end appear correctly in the survey's hosted feature service, but when printed to the a MS-Word report from the Survey123 webpage, the time is reported as 5 hours ahead (utcoffset).

I am using your information in an attempt to fix my offset time, but I don't understand your last comment "Do not forget to keep your UTC date as a string."

When I use the field types and calculations as shown, below, I get a 13 integer return.

What should my field types be in order to return a date and time in my time zone? What am I doing wrong?

The Survey123 Community and I appreciate your time and attention to our questions. Thank you!

Joe

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

JamesTedrick — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 17:06:14 GMT

Hi Joe,

I would suggest using the format-date() function to write out the time to a hidden/calculate question to store the date as a local string.

On the reporting of time 5 hours ahead, I can see this problem and have logged an issue to correct it.

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

JoeFlannery — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 19:49:48 GMT

James:

Thank you for your attention. I'll do that for now.

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

JoeFlannery — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 20:12:29 GMT

James:

I was excited to see the time error bug fix in report generation in the August 30th update to Survey123 website. I don't know if what I am reporting here is a bug or expected behavior.

As shown in my earlier posting, above, I am using the "start" and "end" options in the "type" field to automatically get the start time and end time of the survey form. I take those results and format them and save them as text.

I discovered that if the "type" field for my StartDTtext and StopDTtext items is "hidden", then my times are output in the S123 Word report incorrectly (see below). If the "type" field for my StartDTtext and StopDTtext items is "text", then my times are output in the S123 Word report correctly (see below). This is true even though my "bind::esri:fieldType = esriFieldTypeString".

Thank you for your time

Joe

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

AndrewHargreaves2 — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 12:31:58 GMT

James Tedrick‌

I'm assuming there's no way to include 'utcOffset' within 'now()' ? I tried the below to no success:

now(pulldata("@property","utcOffset"))

Thanks

Re: calculate time zone or UTC

JamesTedrick — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 15:37:08 GMT

Hi Andrew,

The now() function takes no parameters - it simple returns the current timestamp. If you are wanting to generate a 'local' timestamp (one with the UTC offset built-in to support systems that are not timezone aware), you would need to add the offset to the timestamp (in the calculation column):

now() + pulldata("@property", "utcoffset")*60*60*1000