Projects/Absolute DateTime Reference/Functional Specs

Absolute DateTime Reference - Functional Specifications

Overview

This project intends to deliver two new references:

• Absolute Time
• Absolute DateTime

to be able to operate absolute time/datetime data within the application.

Purpose

Working with already existing "Time" and "DateTime" functions, the stored value is loaded from the backend (with the backend/server timezone) and displayed in the client/browser with the own client timezone. This behavior fits, for example, in the "created" or "updated" columns, where you need to save current client datetime value, but stored with the server timezone. With this, if a record has been modified, for example, 5 minutes ago, a user always will see in his screen this timestamp set as 5 minuted before its current date and time.

There is another scenario where the displayed datetime or time in the client/browser needs to be exactly the same that is stored in the server. Here it is when these new *absolute* references are needed to be used. Let's imagine a situation where the user wants to review the departure times of an airport. The user needs that this information be displayed exactly with the same timestamp, independently of his timezone. Needless to say, that in the case of adding data the same logic applies, and what the user sees on his screen is what should be persisted in the server.

Scope

• At this stage of the project, the new reference has been developed only thinking in the ERP.
• The new references is only intended for be used in new fields. Using them in already existing "Time" or "DateTime" fields can cause data inconsistency.

Design Considerations

Constraints

• Default values like "@SQL=SELECT to_char(now(),'HH24:MI:SS') AS def FROM dual" are not going to work properly because this logic is evaluated in the server which has its own timezone, that could be different from the client one.