Time Zone Specification to Represent Data in

Rather than an application-wide setting, it would be helpful if the individual queries in DataLink (esp. Compressed and Calculated Data) had an optional parameter to specify time zone for the query. I'm thinking of something similar to the time zone selection dropdown in the Advanced tab of the PI SQL Client connection UI.

Customers that use PI to PI to consolidate data into a central PI Server from geographically distributed sites located in different time zones struggle to compare data across sites when the time-of-day context is important (e.g., midnight-to-midnight or shift-wise time ranges for time series or summary data).

It would be great for users who need data from multiple sites and know the time zone that corresponds to each site could specify their desired time zone context when querying each data item. Better yet, it would be great if the PI Server stored this time zone information as part of the tag's meta-data and could apply appropriate local time zone rules to time stamps automatically if this is the user's desired behavior, but now we are getting beyond the scope of a DataLink enhancement. ;)

Is this specific to PI System Explorer, PI Builder, or PI Vision? PI Builder does have this option. PI System Explorer does not.

In response to Chris Manhard, "Is this specific to PI System Explorer, ..." This enhancement originated from a Tech Support case and was for both PI DataLink and PI System Explorer. Sorry for not making that clear in the request.

We are also noticing when viewing events from an AF server in a different time zone using either PI Explorer or using PI Datalink, the events start & end times are shown in the client time ... this is extremely confusing & makes analysis difficult.   Is there a setting that I am missing somewhere?  This has the potential of causing a number of problems.... specificallty when a number of sites are being compared for performance metrics ... the client app settings have to be adjusted repeatedly for both local servers & servers in other time zones.   Is there a fix planned for this?

We are also noticing when viewing events from an AF server in a different time zone using either PI Explorer or using PI Datalink, the events start & end times are shown in the client time ... this is extremely confusing & makes analysis difficult.   Is there a setting that I am missing somewhere?  This has the potential of causing a number of problems.... specificallty when a number of sites are being compared for performance metrics ... the client app settings have to be adjusted repeatedly for both local servers & servers in other time zones.   Is there a fix planned for this?

Hi, What would be your desired behavior? Show EF start and end time with respect to the AF Server timezone or ????

In response to Stephen Kwan, "Hi, What would be your desired behavior?..." I assume the behavior is unchanged based on the event frame I generated this evening... I was hoping to allow the user to select en event frame from a list of event frame time periods returned to the PI Datalink using Events Explore.   PI PSE: Server: Central Time and Client is Eastern Time PI Datalink The creates a real mess... Adding UTC to the event frame is not too bad, but then I have to figure out how to convert the time so I am selecting the correct start and end time for PI Datalink to pull the correct data.   Or I can tell my users to change their client time to match the server time zone... That will go over well...

In response to Rick Smith, "I assume the behavior is unchanged based..." At least changing the client time to the server time (and restarting excel) works for my use case.

As a client user located in a different time zone than the AF Server, I would like to have the ability to view Event Frame start and end time  in server time. Currently it's only possible to view the start and end time of event frames in client time.

This is something completely necessary, for example, when you are working with Event Frames. Time zone of attribute values is adjusted correctly to the PI Data Archive timezone if the option is checked in the settings, but there is no such option for Event Frames' start and end times. It should be included in order to make good analyses when you are working in different time zones.