Dates that show in BP in control room, log etc

[MayankGoyal2]

Hi,

There are different sections in BO where date is reflected and can be filtered on UI with date - 

1) Process/Objects saved log - My understanding is it shows datetime of local machine where we open BP, eg if someone in IST saves a process and I open it in PST, save log will show me PST time?

2) Control room WQ - When we view WQ item in control room, it shows local machine date however on downloading queue report the date shown is UTC time? All filters that are applied on WQ with queue VBO works as per UTC time?

3) Session manager  - If someone runs the process from control room during IST and when I check it from my local machine in PST, will it show PST time i.e time of my local machine?

4) Scheduler - As per my understand scheduled time is of BP server, eg. if I schedule a process to run at 5am it will run at 5am of BP server?

5) Logs (Process and Objects Log) - Logs are saved as per time of local machine and doesn't show converted time? I was checking logs of a process in PST time zone on 2nd of a month and it was showing me log date as 3rd of month as someone in India has debug that process and it was already 3rd in IST? This is bit confusing however want to ensure my understanding is right?




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Mayank Goyal
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[CharlesTrott]

Good Day Mayank, 

Regarding Date for Blue Prism we have to remember that best practices is to have the entire environment on the same time zone. The interactive client should be on the same time zone as the application servers, as the runtime resources, and as the database to prevent issues like this occurring. This way your PST or EST users logging into your IST environment will not experience any difference. Reporting for a given environment should be done at the process or UI level by converting it to the target timezone and updating the related information from a display standpoint. 

That being said lets address what would happen with the proposed scenarios. 

1. Process/Object saved log - This would be written from the machine that the work is saved on, potentially losing the timezone it was recorded in as a Datetime value derived from .Net
2. Control Room Work Queues - Dates associated with Work Queues Item records (e.g. created, started, deferred date) are stored as UTC, so it is UTC times that you will see in log files. When viewing work queues in the Control Room the times are converted from UTC to the local time of the user profile (Link to Knowledgebase Article)
3. Session Manager: The local time will be passed in but it may not be converted to UTC, which can lead to inconsistent time being reported.
4. Scheduler: You are correct this will be executed based on the local time of the Application Server.

For more information our KB article on How are dates and times stored in the Blue Prism database tables? may be of use.

I hope this helps and have a great day.

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Charles Trott
Senior Product Consultant
Blue Prism
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