Configuring the System Timezone

Discover requires that a single time zone be defined across all Discover servers in the system. For some Discover operations such as searching, the time zone may change the meaning of parameters such as today or yesterday. Among other features, this system-wide time zone is used as the basis for determining when scheduled reports are executed and delivered.

Note: Discover supports all Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) formatted time zones. The use of a time zone that is not defined as standard Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) time zone is not supported.

All time zone values for Discover components and applications are calculated from the system time zone, except for Search Server. All sessions and canister data are stored using GMT timestamps, so no timezone references are needed for Search Server. See Configuring the Search Server.
Individual users may set their local time zone. A user's time zone primarily affects searching for data. See "My Settings" in the Discover Manuals.

Note: For time zones that include Daylight Savings Time during the year, reporting values when the hour jumps forward show a gap of one hour while values when the hour jumps backward result in double-counts. Discover administrators can use Portal Announcements to notify users of the time change and its effects. See "Portal Announcements" in the Unica Discover Administration Manual.

Note: During the installation process, the system time zone should be carefully considered and selected. After changing the system time zone on an actively processing Discover system, some data may be lost when the next trimming of the canisters is performed. The volume of potentially lost data is the number of hours by which the time zone was shifted.