1. Global Deployment Guide
  2. About the UTC Conversion Utility

About the UTC Conversion Utility

This topic is part of Converting Historical Data to UTC.

To update existing date and time data in your data tables to UTC, you need to run the UTC conversion utility from the Database Configuration Wizard, as described in Running the UTC Conversion Utility. This utility helps you define the required parameters for UTC conversion.

After conversion is complete, the UTC conversion utility sets the Universal Time Coordinated system preference to True. (When you start the utility, the setting can be either True or False.)

Running the UTC conversion utility reads a series of input files that control the conversion of your date-time data to UTC. Several input files are provided by default. On the Siebel Server computer or operating system instance where you installed the Database Configuration Utilities, these input files are located in the directory SIEBEL_ROOT\DBSRVR\DB_PLATFORM, where DB_PLATFORM is ORACLE, MSSQL, DB2UDB, or DB2390. The input file names start with utc and have the extension .inp.

The file driver_utc.ucf identifies the UTC conversion input files, which contain parameters specifying the columns that you are converting to UTC. Each of these input files updates the appropriate database columns to the UTC format in a single database transaction.

Each input file entry contains the table name, a WHERE clause, and a list of columns with their conversion methods. The conversion method defines how to link each record to the user record from which the default time zone is derived. The value specified as the conversion method corresponds to a column whose value identifies a unique user record.

Note: It is recommended to modify the default input files, or to create additional input files, to specify all of the applicable date-time columns to be converted, and to specify the most suitable conversion method for each column. The conversion methods are explained later in this topic.

Each input file entry is structured as follows:

[TABLE_NAME]
Clause = WHERE_CLAUSE 
Column = COLUMN_NAME, CONVERSION_METHOD 
...

where:

  • TABLE_NAME is the database table containing the date-time columns that you will be converting.

  • WHERE_CLAUSE, an optional value for Clause, can be used to specify a subset of columns to be converted. For an example, see Preparing Your Data for Conversion to UTC.

  • COLUMN_NAME, the first value for Column, indicates a column to be converted (for example, CREATED).

  • CONVERSION_METHOD, the second value for Column, indicates the conversion method to be used for this column. Possible values are SERVER_TIME and CREATED_BY.