Plant ApplicationsUTC Support
Plant Applications supports Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as an option on a fresh installation of the Proficy Server..
When you install a new Proficy Server, you can use the time zone of the server to store your data or you can use the UTC option. The UTC option is required to support a Regional Server where plants span time zones. It is also required to support storage of time across the Daylight Saving Time (DST) boundary. UTC is similar to using GMT +0:00 as your time zone, with the exception that UTC does not acknowledge Daylight Saving Time. For example, GMT -6:00 is minus five hours from UTC, when adjusting for Daylight Saving Time. When you choose the UTC option, all the data is stored on your server in UTC time regardless of the time zone of the server.
Visit this Knowledge Base article to understand how to implement Coordinated Universal Time. https://digitalsupport.ge.com/communities/en_US/Article/To-Leverage-The-UTC-Functions-in-The-Latest-50-Release.
Reporting and UTC
Plant Applications displays support UTC including displaying data across the DTS boundary. When data comes into a display, the timestamp is converted to the time zone of the client. For example, a test value with a UTC timestamp of 07:00:00 would be displayed with a timestamp of 02:00:00 on a client with a time zone of GMT -6:00 (assuming Daylight Saving Time). For data that crosses the Fall DST boundary, you see multiple rows and columns arranged in UTC order, depending on the display, in the same time range. For example, you can set up a time-based Autolog display which includes columns of 30-minute samples. Assuming your DST boundary is at 2:00 AM, the first 1:30 AM column in Autolog precedes 2:00 AM, while the second 1:30 AM column presents its sample after the DST boundary.
Plant Applications 6.1 or higher supports UTC-enabled standard reports and a UTC-enabled Excel Add-in.
Default Time Zone Site Parameter
Use the Default Time Zone site parameter to specify UTC or the time zone of the server. You cannot edit this option after entering data in the Plant Applications database. This option is not available when upgrading directly from an earlier version of Plant Applications.
