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Wait Steps and Global Time Calculations in Workflow

An absolute wait is a wait period governed solely by the duration specified. For example, an absolute wait set for 30 minutes waits 30 minutes from the time the wait is initiated by a Wait step. A service calendar wait, on the other hand, is not absolute. For example, a service calendar wait could be set to begin at 6 P.M., but if the service hours for the organization are 9 A.M. to 6 P.M., the wait will not initiate until 9 the next morning. So it will run from 9 to 9:30 instead of 6 to 6:30.

When creating workflows with Wait steps, keep in mind that in this release, absolute waits are not affected by any time-zone settings, including server and user time-zone preferences. The database server should always use UTC. For more information, see Global Deployment Guide.

For a wait that is not absolute—that is, the workflow involves service calendar integration—the Wait step requires a time zone for delay computations. In this case, the current user's time zone is used.

NOTE:  When a workflow process is executing as a server task, you must shut down and restart the Workflow Process Manager after making any changes to the Time Zone user preference for the SADMIN user. The changes will only take effect after restarting the Workflow Process Manager. This is important if you are implementing UTC, as you may need to set the Time Zone user preference.