Overview
Manychat has numerous fields holding date & time data sensitive to time zone value (like 'Current time' condition or 'Delivery time' in Broadcast settings). Historically all those fields were calculated and presented depending on a contact's browser time zone value, which was confusing sometimes, especially when a number of admins were working on the same Bot. In this case they saw different time zones (and date & time) values for the same field.
Now we're happy to introduce the new feature - Account Time Zone. This setting will tie up all time zone sensitive fields to a static value which you can set up according to your business operating area.
After this, all your date & time values will be calculated and presented according to the chosen time zone. Account Time Zone will be applied to all Manychat features that were sent by the Admin's time zone (Conditions, Broadcasts, Rules, etc.) as well as all integrations, for instance, Google Sheet Integration.
For example, if you're setting working hours from 9 AM to 6 PM through the Current Time condition and your Account Time Zone in UTC+3, any contact from any time zone sees that you're open only when 9 AM comes in UTC+3.
How is the time displayed for me and for the contact?
Here's an example. Let's say, your Account Time Zone is +0. Your contact is in +3. Contact enters certain time through the User Input: December, 2, 12.15 AM - and then receives it in Messenger. What will be displayed?
1. In Messenger, the contact will see the time according to this person's timezone: 12.15 PM (UTC+3).
2. In Live Chat and Custom Field, you will see 9.15 AM (UTC+0): the same time, but in the Account Time Zone.
Let's take a look! In this test, time in Custom Field was changed to the same value. Only the display format in different.
But what if the time wasn't entered through the User Input? What if I've changed the Custom Field manually or through the Action and then send it to the contact?
The time will be displayed in the contactr's personal time zone too.
Note: if you are using Calendly or similar services, make sure to set the main time zone of the service to the time zone you are working in. It is necessary so the service would send us the appointment time with the right time zone, for example, 15.00 in UTC+1.
In other case, the service might send us 15.00 in UTC+0 when the contact is in UTC+1 and Manychat will display 16.00 in result.
Let's take a look! In this test, time in Custom Field was changed to the same value. Only the display format is different:
Choosing Account Time Zone
Once you add a new page to Manychat, your Account time zone will be automatically set to your browser time zone. You will see the new value in Settings (as shown in the GIF below). Even if there are two or more admins in the different time zones, all bot features will be working based on Account Time Zone.
In order to choose your Account time zone manually, go to Settings → General and choose the needed value.