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About UTC System Preferences

This topic is part of About Global Time Zone and Universal Time Coordinated (UTC).

The global time zone feature makes use of two UTC-related system preferences:

• Universal Time Coordinated. Set to True for UTC deployments (and set to True by default). As described in Converting Historical Data to UTC, the UTC conversion utility sets this system preference to True as its last step after completing the UTC conversion process. You do not need to set this system preference directly.
• Default Time Zone. Specifies a time zone that is to be used when the Time Zone field in the current user's profile is NULL, as described in About UTC Data Conversion. Where a user has specified a default time zone, this time zone overrides the setting of the Default Time Zone system preference.

  For example, for a company with the majority of employees in California, you might set this system preference to (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada); Tijuana, signifying GMT minus 8 hours. The value you enter must correspond to the name of the time zone as represented in the Time Zone Administration view. See also Administering Time Zones.

  NOTE:  The Default Time Zone system preference has no default value. If you deploy with UTC, then you must specify a value for this system preference. Otherwise, incorrect time stamp values will be created and displayed where no time zone preference is specified for the current user.

  For information about setting the Universal Time Coordinated and Default Time Zone system preferences, see Setting UTC System Preferences.

NOTE:  The Default Time Zone system preference is never used if Universal Time Coordinated is False (that is, if you are not using UTC). In this case, time stamps for records use the local time set for the operating system clock of the Siebel Server computer (which can use any time zone), except for time stamp values that are set explicitly such as appointment start or end times.