Release 12 of Oracle E-Business Suite includes as standard a feature called User-Preferred Time Zone Support. In most existing E-Business Suite implementations, all users interact with the system in the “corporate time zone”, which will normally be the time zone of the headquarters of the implementing company, and the time zone in which the database runs. This means that remote users have to be aware of the time difference between their location and that of the corporate headquarters.
Employing the user-preferred time zone feature enables users to specify their local time zone for both display and entry of date-with-time fields. Key consequences of this are:
Users see date-with-time fields in their preferred (local) time zone, and can enter dates with time in this time zone
Date fields without a time component are not affected by this feature
The data in the database continues to be stored in the standard corporate time zone
This appendix discusses the capabilities, limitations, and implementation details of the user-preferred time zone feature.
Conceptually, there are two types of date fields:
Dates with a time component – used to indicate a specific point in time within a particular day
Dates without a time component – used to denote a particular day, but not a specific point in time within that day
Date fields with a time component can be represented in any time zone, and thus displayed in whichever time zone is most meaningful to the end user. Generally, users prefer to view dates in their own (local) time zone. With the user-preferred time zone feature enabled, date with time fields will be converted to the user’s preferred time zone for display.
Date fields without a time component cannot be represented in different time zones, because no meaningful conversion is possible for a date that does not include a specific time. Such a date is entered with respect to one time zone, and in general must be viewed as a day in that time zone, regardless of the location (and possibly different time zone) in which it is being viewed. Oracle E-Business Suite typically uses the corporate time zone for these day definitions: dates without a time component represent the day with respect to the corporate headquarters (corporate days).
There are some exceptions to the above rule. For example, dates without a time component may be held as ANSI dates, to represent dates independently of the time zone in which they are being viewed. In such a case, a benefit that starts on 1st January will start on that date wherever in the world it is made available; that is, it will apply to anyone who is in a time zone where it is 1st January.
Many dates without a time component represent pointers to a financial period. These dates are not meant to indicate the exact hour and minute that a transaction occurred, but rather the financial period into which the transaction is accounted. This is a financial bucketing from the perspective of the implementing company. For example, the invoice dates on Payables or Receivables invoices never change based on who is looking at them: they are classified as invoices for that day (and thus that period), regardless of the viewer or his local time zone.
For further details of setting up Oracle E-Business Suite to use multiple time zones, see My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 402650.1, User Preferred Time Zone Support in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12. For a discussion of time zones in the context of other globalization-related topics, see Globalization Support in Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts.
There are no upgrade considerations for E-Business Suite customers upgrading from 11.5.10 CU2 or higher who have already enabled user-preferred time zone support. The upgrade will be transparent and the relevant functionality will not change.
For E-Business Suite customers who are upgrading to Release 12 from a release in which the user-preferred time zone feature was not enabled or not used, existing time zone practices must be taken into account when enabling user-preferred time zone support.
Prior to Release 11.5.10 (with CU2), users could deal with time zone differences in one of two ways:
By entering data in the standard corporate time zone (as recommended by Oracle).
The choices in this case are between:
Enabling the user-preferred time zone feature and allowing users to continue working in the standard corporate time zone (as before the upgrade)
Enabling the user-preferred time zone feature, setting a preferred time zone, and starting to interact with the system in this time zone. Failing to set a user-level time zone preference at user level will result in the standard corporate time zone continuing to be used.
By entering data in the local time zone, and using a custom solution to resolve any issues that arise when comparing data across transactions initiated in different time zones.
In this case, enabling the user-preferred time zone feature could result in unwanted date-with-time conversions, whereby local dates with time are converted to the user-preferred time zone: this is because the system assumes that all dates with time are stored in the corporate time zone.
For further details, refer to Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade Guide: Release 11i to Release 12.
This section provides the technical considerations involved in implementing the user-preferred time zone feature.
For user-preferred time zone support to operate correctly, all of the following must be true:
The operating system time zone setting for the database server must be set to the standard corporate time zone.
The database must be configured to use the time zone file timezlrg.dat rather than the timezone.dat file.
The database must be started in the standard corporate time zone.
Every application tier JVM (Java Virtual Machine) must be started in the standard corporate time zone. This can be achieved by setting the application tier operating system time zone to match the standard corporate time zone.
Profile 'Server Timezone' (SERVER_TIMEZONE_ID) must be set at site level, and must be set to the same standard corporate time zone as the database.
Profile 'Client Timezone' (CLIENT_TIMEZONE_ID) must be set at user level. This is applicable to Oracle Forms based UIs.
Preference ‘Timezone’ must be set at user level. This is applicable to HTML based UIs.
Profile 'Enable Timezone Conversions' (ENABLE_TIMEZONE_CONVERSIONS) must be set to 'Yes' (or 'Y') at site level.
Profile 'Concurrent: Multiple Time Zones' (CONC_MULTI_TZ) must be set to 'No' (or 'N') at the site level.
Environment variable FORMS_APPSLIBS must be set in the Forms tier
Forms must be launched through the Personal Home Page or Navigator portlet.
These requirements are discussed in more detail below.
The database must be started using the timezlrg.dat file, which contains the time zone definitions that are used within Oracle E-Business Suite. To do this in a UNIX environment, issue a command such as:
setenv ORA_TZFILE $ORACLE_HOME/oracore/zoneinfo/timezlrg.dat
before starting the database.
The database must also be started in the standard corporate time zone. To set this in a UNIX environment, issue a command such as:
setenv TZ <Timezone Code> [For example, ‘America/Los_Angeles’]
You can verify your setup by running the following command in SQL*Plus:
select to_char(SYSDATE, ‘DD-MON-RRRR HH24:MI:SS’) from dual;
to ensure the date with time returned are correct for the corporate time zone.
The profile option Server Timezone (SERVER_TIMEZONE_ID) should be set at site level to the standard corporate time zone (the time zone in which the server has been set to run).
Caution: This profile option should not be changed once set, as existing data will not be updated.
Users may specify their preferred time zone at user level. This is done by setting the ‘Timezone’ preference in HTML-based applications, or by setting the ‘Client Timezone' profile option in Forms-based applications. As with most profile options, the user will need to log out and log back in for the change to take effect. The preferred time zone may be changed as often as needed.
The profile option 'Enable Timezone Conversions' (ENABLE_TIMEZONE_CONVERSIONS) has a default value of ‘No’ at site level. This will cause the applications to continue showing all dates in the corporate time zone. Setting this value to ‘Yes’ will enable the automatic conversion of all date with time fields to the user-preferred time zone.
Important: Unless users are notified of this change, they may think that they are still operating in the corporate time rather than local time (or vice versa), and consequently enter or interpret data erroneously.
Note the behavior of the existing profile 'Concurrent: Multiple Time Zones' (CONC_MULTI_TZ). This was an older feature to handle batch processing. Setting this profile to ‘Yes’ alters the default value that appears for the Scheduled Start Date in the Submit Requests screen to SYSDATE-1. With the new user preferred time zone feature enabled, this profile is no longer needed, and should have a value of ‘No’.
This environment variable controls multiple aspects of Oracle Forms in the Oracle E-Business Suite environment, and must be left unchanged from the installed setting.
The time zone feature is only available in Oracle Forms based user interfaces within Oracle E-Business Suite when the user logs in through the Personal Home Page or the Navigator portlet. Direct launching of Forms, for example by typing a URL into the browser address line, is supported only for bootstrap purposes, and will not enable the time zone feature, or other features such as language settings and date formats.