Your SharePoint content uses columns like Created, Modified, or any other custom date time column. The date-time column values are displayed based on the Site’s Regional settings. If the application users are from different regions then they will see different values causing the data misunderstanding. Let’s understand the issue in detail…

Issue

Let’s say for example, in Regional settings of the site, the administrator has set the Time Zone to UTC – 5.00 (Easter Time – US and Canada).

Now, someone modifies a record in the SharePoint list.

Case 1

The screenshot below shows a US / Canada machine. You can see the time of the modified column and time on the computer are same. So, in this case, the user can relate the activity with his local time.

Case 2

Now the same entry you can see from the machine in India. The modified date is the same but the local time is showing next day 2.06 AM. Here the end-user will think the entry was modified the earlier day but which is not the case here.

The entry on the modified date is showing the time zone of Regional settings and not of the local computer time. This situation can create a big misunderstanding about the data.

Before going to the solution let’s see how to set the time zone from regional settings.

Set Time Zone from Regional settings

You can set regional setting by CSOM programming but follow below instructions to set it manually.

• Go to Site Settings
• Click on Regional settings under Site Administration.
• We need to focus on Time only so we will change the Time zone for now.

• Click OK.

Solution

There’s one other way to set the regional settings. Set Regional settings for the user individually.

If for the individual user, the regional settings are modified, then SharePoint will consider the user’s Time Zone rather than the site-level time zone.

For the above example, we can set the time zone of the user (who is from India) to UTC + 5.30. that way time will reflect properly in the modified date column (or in any other DateTime column).

Two ways to change user’s personal Regional settings.

Option 1: For Update profile in Office Delve for SharePoint Online.

• Click on cog icon from the top right corner in the SharePoint Online site

• Click on Update Profile.

• As shown in Screenshot, click on the link. On the next page click on the ellipsis and then click on Language and Region

• Go to section Time zone and edit the zone as per your requirement. It might be disabled. Make sure you tick: Always use my personal settings.

Option 2: for SharePoint On-premises

• Go to Central Administration.
• User Profile services
• Manage User Profiles
• Find the profile that you want to edit
• Edit Profile. Go to Time Zone entry
• It might be disabled. Make sure you tick: Always use my personal settings.

Let us know in the comment section if you are facing any other problem with the Date time column. We will try to cover it in upcoming tutorials.