CRM 2011, Date in plugin and DST

Question

I have one issue which I resolved by myself but yet need some confirming words whether I am 100% correct on my thought, just because there is not any documentation I found to prove myself correct.

My server is in DST time currently, CRM UI is also showing 1 hour up then data stored in db. that's fine.

When I calculate and store date with plugin, after my plugin update operation finishes, CRM platform deducts 1 hour from data I saved. I have read that when we do some operation via SDK related date time, CRM stores date time as it is. is it the case that when time is in DST, platform also get involves to deduct 1 hour by then ?

As a resolution, I have commented out my line of deducting 1 hour and letting CRM to do it now.

Am I correct on my understanding or it would be appreciable if some one can provide any documentation URL.

Answer 1

Any time you're working in the SDK, DateTimes are retrieved and stored as UTC. The CRM web platform will convert the UTC time into the user's time. You shouldn't need to be doing any Conversions of time, just using UTC.

Let's assume your local time is UTC -1 (with DST since UTC doesn't observe it). So if UTC is 14:00, your local time is 13:00. Let's also assume your plugin in going to populate a date attribute on the entity that is for the current time, tomorrow. If your code looks like this:

entity.new_SomeDate = DateTime.Now.AddDays(1);
service.Update(entity);

Assuming DateTime.Now is 13:00, it'll store 13:00 in the database (as if it was UTC). Then when you go to look at the time value from the CRM website, since you're UTC - 1 it'll display 12:00, even though you wanted 13:00.

Now if your code looks like this:

entity.new_SomeDate = DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(1);
service.Update(entity);

Assuming DateTime.Now is 13:00, it'll store 14:00 in the database since DateTime.UtcNow is 14:00. Then when you go to look at the time value from the CRM website, since you're UTC - 1 it'll display 13:00, since it'll take the UTC value - 1.

Now if your code looks like this:

entity.new_SomeDate = entity.new_UserEnteredDateFromCrm.AddDays(1);
service.Update(entity);

The new_UserEnteredDateFromCrm will already have been converted from the users' Time Zone to UTC and it'll work as expected.

This makes DateTimes that you would prefer to store as Dates very difficult though (birthdays anyone?) and you may have to think through it a little more in depth.

Answer 2

I've figured it out myself. that date has component in it which explores what kind of date time is it in. it can be either Utc, Local or Unspecified.

when you pass any date to CRM attribute via code. make sure that date time kind is Utc, otherwise CRM service internal operation will convert it to be into Utc.

In my case, I was stucked to this because when I read date from CRM, I had to set office start in that date. e.g. I needed to make 03/02/2014 12:00 to 03/02/2014 8:30 to make incoming date aligned with office start time. I was doing operation like,

DateTime InDate = Case.CreatedOn.Value;
DateTime Dt = new DateTime(InDate.Year,InDate.Month,InDate.Day,8,30,0)

Having InDate in Utc Time, I was creating new date object so it lost DateTime kind from Utc to Local ( having in DST it signifies to be 1 hour up)

to avoid, always set DateTime kind to be exactly as provided In date to new object. e.g. above operation can be done alternatively like.

DateTime InDate = Case.CreatedOn.Value;
DateTime Dt = new DateTime(InDate.Year,InDate.Month,InDate.Day,8,30,0)
Dt = DateTime.SpecifyKind(Dt,DateTimeKind.Utc)

Hope that Helps.