Managing time-sensitive fields across different time zones can be challenging for teams and businesses. The Account Time Zone feature in Manychat ensures consistency and eliminates confusion by tying all time-sensitive fields to a single, static time zone.
In this article, you’ll learn about the Account Time Zone feature in Manychat and how it simplifies managing time zone-sensitive fields across your account. This feature is especially useful for businesses operating in specific regions and needing consistent time zone settings for their automations.
With the account time zone feature, all time zone-sensitive fields are tied to a static value that you can configure to match your business's operating region. This ensures consistency across your automations and makes it easier for teams to manage accounts collaboratively.
How to set up your account time zone
💡 When you add a new page to Manychat, the account time zone will automatically default to your browser's time zone.
Even if multiple admins are working in different time zones, all account features will operate consistently based on the Account Time Zone.
To change the account time zone:
- Navigate to Settings > General > Account Time Zone.
- Select the desired time zone.
Once configured, all data in Manychat will be displayed and exported based on the selected time zone. The Account Time Zone will apply to all Manychat features that were previously reliant on the Admin's time zone, such as Conditions, Broadcasts, and Rules. It also extends to integrations, like Google Sheets Integration, ensuring consistent time zone alignment across all tools and features.
For example, if you set your working hours from 9 AM to 6 PM using the Current Time condition and your Account Time Zone is set to UTC+3, contacts from any time zone will see that you're open only when it is 9 AM in UTC+3.
How is the time displayed for me and for the contact?
Here’s an example to clarify how the Account Time Zone works:
Let’s say your Account Time Zone is set to UTC+4, and your contact is in UTC+0. The contact enters a specific time through the User Input feature — Dec 30, 12 PM This time is then displayed back to them in Messenger. Here’s what happens:
- In Messenger: The contact will see the time according to their time zone—12 PM (UTC-0).
- In Live Chat and Custom Fields: You will see the same time converted to your Account Time Zone — 16 PM (UTC+4).
This ensures that both you and the contact see the same moment, adjusted to your respective time zones.
What happens if the time wasn’t entered through the User Input?
What if you manually updated the Custom Field or modified it through an Action and then sent it to the contact? In this case, the time will still be displayed in the contact’s personal time zone.
⚠️ Note: If you’re using services like Calendly or similar tools, ensure the primary time zone in the service is set to match your working time zone. This ensures that appointment times are sent to Manychat with the correct time zone.
For example, 3 p.m. in UTC+1. Otherwise, the service might send 3 p.m. in UTC+0 when the contact is in UTC+1, causing Manychat to display 4 p.m. instead of the intended time.
Example
Let’s take a look at how this works in a Manychat account:
In this example, you can see the time in the Custom User Field (1, 2, 3), which is displayed in the account's time zone, and the contact's time (4), which reflects the contact's time zone.
In this case, the contact's time zone is UTC+0, while the account's time zone is UTC+4. This means that 16:00 in the account's time zone corresponds to 12:00 in the contact's time zone.
Essentially, the contact set the time to 12:00, which Manychat adjusts to 16:00 in the account’s time zone, as the two time zones differ.