Solved: Time Zone issue with COBRAS Import for Unity Connection

dtran · ‎08-05-2010

Hi all,

I am in the process of migrating from Unity 4.0.5 to Unity Connection 8.x. I've successfully ran the COBRAS Export in Unity and about ready to run COBRAS Import for Unity Connection. I've successfully imported some users for testing and I notice there's an issue with users in central time zone. The COBRAS Import tool automatically puts users with central time zone into America/Regina time zone during the import. And as I understand there is no day light saving for America/Regina, so the time stamp on voice messages for users with America/Regina time zone is one hour behind.

Has anyone run into this issue ? Any workaround for this ?

Thanks in advance !!! I appreciate any inputs/suggestions !!!

D.

lindborg · ‎08-05-2010

Unfortunately there is no one-to-one mapping of time zones between Windows and the Linux world - COBRAS will attempt to find a match based on hour offset and name (some names are explicitly mapped) and failing that it will simply pick the first timezone that matches the GMT (UDT more accurately) offset.

What's the full name of the timezone in Windows you have your users mapped to in Unity? I'll see if I can figure out a way to explicitly map it in Connection - the problem is Unity actually stores the timezones as an abreviated hash and not a full string you can easily compare - hence the challange (legacy of the days when it was tucked into an extended property in Exchange 5.5 - long story). Either way, it's not quite as trivial as it seems like it should be.

You can bulk edit the time zone assingment for users with the SA's bulk edit tool (found in the tools section of the SA in 7.x). If it's easy enough to find the user's that are in this time zone that may be your best approach in the short term.

View solution in original post

lindborg · ‎08-05-2010

Unfortunately there is no one-to-one mapping of time zones between Windows and the Linux world - COBRAS will attempt to find a match based on hour offset and name (some names are explicitly mapped) and failing that it will simply pick the first timezone that matches the GMT (UDT more accurately) offset.

What's the full name of the timezone in Windows you have your users mapped to in Unity? I'll see if I can figure out a way to explicitly map it in Connection - the problem is Unity actually stores the timezones as an abreviated hash and not a full string you can easily compare - hence the challange (legacy of the days when it was tucked into an extended property in Exchange 5.5 - long story). Either way, it's not quite as trivial as it seems like it should be.

You can bulk edit the time zone assingment for users with the SA's bulk edit tool (found in the tools section of the SA in 7.x). If it's easy enough to find the user's that are in this time zone that may be your best approach in the short term.

dtran · ‎08-05-2010

Hi Jeff !! I appreciate your help !!!

The exact time zone name in Unity is (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) and COBRAS Import maps it to (GMT-06:00) America/Regina in Unity Connection.

I also have the same issue with users in China and India. The exact time zone name for China and India are:

India - (GMT) +05:30 Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi

China - (GMT +08:00) Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Urumqi

Thanks Jeff !!! very much appreciate your help !!!

D.

lindborg · ‎08-05-2010

So in the cases of the India and China time zones what are they being mapped to in Connection? Is it just a costmetic issue because the names don't match exactly? The GMT offsets are correct, though, right?

dtran · ‎08-05-2010

Hi Jeff,

In the case for China and India. It looks like COBRAS Import doesn't recognize the time zone and automatically puts them in the system default time zone in Unity Connection.

At this point I think I'll have to use Bulk Edit to change the time zone after COBRAS Import. It's not a big deal, good thing that I cought it before rolling the system into production.

So for those who have users in different time zones make sure you test the message time stamp for each time zone before putting the system into production.

Thanks Jeff !!!

D.

lindborg · ‎08-05-2010

I added some logic to manually map time zones by name fragments in Unity to Unix time zones in the Connection DB - the root challange here is there are around 450 time zones defined on the Connection DB and quite a bit fewer than that in Unity's DB (which is taken from Windows but "compressed" into smaller strings). Good times.

Anyway, I have a version that manually maps about 15 common time zones (including the 3 you mentioned) and it seems to be working in my lab. If you're interested in giving it a spin (it will update your users already created no problem) ping me off list - lindborg at cisco dot com. I'll shoot you a copy to work with.

-Jeff