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Time zones

Process engine​

The Operaton engine uses the default time zone of the JVM when operating with dates:

  • When reading datetime values from BPMN XML
  • In REST responses
  • When reading/writing DateTime values from/to the database

Database​

Database time zone and database sessions time zone are out of scope of the Operaton engine and must be configured explicitly.

However, Timestamp columns in the Operaton engine are using the TIMESTAMP [WITHOUT TIME ZONE] data type (the name differs in different database servers). For this reason, it is not recommended to change the time zone on the database side once set, since it may lead to an incorrect operation of the Operaton engine.

Daylight Saving Time

Timezone information is not saved in the timestamp columns. In order to avoid ambiguous timestamps, it is recommended to use a timezone like UTC as the JVM's default timezone that is not adjusted for Daylight Saving Time (DST) and therefore cannot produce ambiguous timestamps.

If this is not an option in your setting, please consider disabling the JobExecutor during the DST switch in order to avoid unexpected job executions.

Operaton Web Applications​

It is possible to use the Operaton web applications in different time zones. All dates are translated to/from the local time zone when working with the UI.

Cluster Setup​

If the process engine is running in a cluster, all cluster nodes must run in the same time zone. If cluster nodes exist in different time zones, correct behavior when operating with DateTime values cannot be guaranteed.