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User Time Zones Add-On

Teachworks Support avatar
Written by Teachworks Support
Updated yesterday

The User Time Zones Add-On allows you to set time zones for teachers and clients so that their lessons are displayed in their local time. This add-on is a great solution for online education businesses with teachers and students in different time zones.

Enabling the Add-on

  1. Click on "Account & Settings" and then click on "Integrations & Add-ons".

  2. Use the "Search" field on the right and enter "User Time Zones".

  3. Click on the "Enable" link.

Company Time Zone

Existing lessons and events that have been scheduled will be in the time zone that is specified in the "Time zone" field under the "Localization Settings" section of the "Account Settings" page.

If you change the time zone in the "Time zone" field, any new lessons will be scheduled using the selected time zone.

Setting Time Zones on Profiles

You can select and set time zones directly on users' profiles by following the steps below:

Families & Students

  1. Click on "Students" and then click on "Families" or "Students".

  2. Click on the "Edit" button to edit the family or student profile that you'd like to set a time zone on.

  3. Scroll down to the "Student Details" section on student profiles and set the time zone in the "Time Zone" field. On family profiles, the "Time zone" field can be found under the "Contact Information" section.

  4. Submit the form to save your changes.

NOTE: The time zone on a Family's profile will not be applied to child profiles attached to them automatically. You will need to follow the steps above to set a time zone on the child's profile.

Teachers

  1. Click on "Employees" and then click on "Employee List".

  2. Click on the "Edit" button to edit the teacher's profile that you'd like to set a time zone on.

  3. Set the time zone in the "Time Zone" field.

  4. Submit the form to save your changes.

NOTE: When the Employee Type” is set to “Administrative Staff” the employee will use the same time zone as the company.

You only need to set time zones on profiles that are different from your company time zone. If you don't specify a time zone on a profile, the company time zone will be used.

Time Zones & Viewing Events

Calendar events are always displayed in the time zone of the user that is viewing it.

Example

If a company's time zone is set to Eastern Standard Time and a teacher’s time zone is set to Pacific Standard Time, when a lesson is scheduled for the teacher that occurs at 2pm Eastern Time, it will appear in the teacher’s account as 11am Pacific Time -- reflecting the 3 hour difference between the two time zones.

Lesson Reminders & Notes

The lesson time displayed in Lesson Reminder notifications (for both email and SMS reminders), as well as Lesson Notes, will always appear in the recipient’s time zone to avoid any confusion.

A {TIME-ZONE} merge tag is available in all notification templates related to events to make the time zone more obvious to the recipient. This allows them to follow up about any scheduling issues prior to their lesson.

Editing Lessons

If a lesson is scheduled in a time zone that is different from the user’s time zone, the “Edit Lessons Form” will display the lesson in the time zone that it was scheduled in.

Example

If a teacher schedules a lesson from 11am - 12pm Pacific Time, when the lesson is viewed from the company account on Eastern Time, the lesson will appear on the calendar as 2pm - 3pm Eastern Time. However, if the company admin or a staff user edits this lesson, the “Edit Lesson Form” will show the time of 2pm - 3pm and the "Time zone" field will indicate it's Pacific Time.

Invoices

If individual lessons are added to an invoice, they will appear in the customer’s selected time zone. This was done intentionally to ensure that your clients are not confused by the lesson times appearing in a different time zone from their own.

Teacher availability

Availability is based on the teacher’s selected time zone and is converted to whatever time zone is set on the profile of the user viewing it.

Example

If a teacher’s time zone is set to Pacific Time and they are available from 11am - 5pm, their availability will appear as 2pm- 8pm to the company administrator and staff user that is on Eastern Time.

If a student is viewing teacher availability in their Teachworks account (on the day or week view) and their time zone is set to Mountain Time, the teacher’s availability will appear as 12pm - 6pm.

What Happens if the Add-on is Disabled?

If you decide to disable the add-on, teachers, families, and students will see events displayed in the company’s selected time zone. However, the time zone fields will still be saved on each client/employee profile, so if you decide to re-enable the add-on, you won’t have to go through the effort of applying time zones to client and employee profiles again -- you’ll only have to update new profiles added after you’ve disabled the add-on.

How is Daylight Savings Time handled?

When you select a time zone from a menu, the time zones will display the standard GMT offset, but you don't have to worry because the software will automatically take daylight savings time into account based on the date the lessons are added.

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