All Qualio date and time information is stored on our servers in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). which is the primary time standard that the world uses to regulate clocks and time. Time zones are expressed using negative and positive offers from UTC. How this information is displayed to the end user would depend on that user’s particular time zone, which is reflected in the Account Settings.
Date/Time Stamping in Emails
When emails are sent to users, all times in the email body will be displayed in Qualio’s server time (UTC). The email metadata will display your local server time, so hours may visually differ.
Date/Time Stamping in the Audit Trail
When completing actions within Qualio, the audit trail will capture the timing of these actions based on the user’s time zone. Let’s take a look at this scenario:
User A is based in the Easter Daylight Time Zone (EDT)
User “Crysta Huszai” approved a document at 2:19pm EDT
User A checks the audit trail and sees the approval in User A’s local time
User B is based in Pacific Daylight Time Zone (PDT) and checks the audit trail
Audit trail displays approval in User B’s local time
Because Qualio’s database logs the action in UTC it can account for each viewing user’s time zone and display the time zone that makes it more understandable for that user.
Date/Time Stamping in the Document Lifecycle
Now that we’ve seen how the audit trail displays time and date information, we’ll take a look at in-app document information as well as exports.
Modifying a Document
The “Last modified” date at the top of the document displays the time that it was edited, tagged, sent for review/approval, approved, or made effective (if not set to automatically make effective upon approval) – any auditable action – in the user’s local time.
Eastern Time Zone Display: | Pacific Time Zone Display: |
When exporting a document, the cover page will display the Approval date and time in UTC which is also based on the user’s time zone.
Eastern Time Zone Display: | Pacific Time Zone Display: |
The Approval date and Effective date may be different depending on whether the document was automatically made effective upon approval.
Date/Time Stamping in Training Records
Finally, we’ll take a look at how a user’s time zone is reflected in their training records visible on theTraining Overview and Your Overall Training pages. Just as we’ve seen above, the time zone displayed will reflect the viewing user’s time zone..
Your Overall Training
All user levels have access to view their own training, and this report will reflect their current time zone setting.
Example: User completed training at 2:14pm with EDT time zone
If you’re a Quality user you can view individual users’ overall training. For this example, the Quality user is based in the PDT. Viewing the same record from the example above, the PDT time would be displayed for the Quality user.
Example: PDT-based Quality user is viewing completed training
If the Quality User exports the training record to CSV or .xlsx, times will be represented in UTC -0700.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does adding a tag to an effective document change the Last Modified date?
The tag attribute is related to a document in a similar way to the owner of a document. When a tag is adjusted on a document, this triggers a change in the database and alters the Last Modified date.
Which activities that affect the Last Modified date are captured in the audit trail?
All audit trail activities can be found in our Audit Trail Overview article.
Do approvals change the Last Modified date?
If there are multiple approvers on a document, the Last Modified date will update once the final approver completes the review. This triggers a status change from For Approval to Approved and therefore requires a database update to reflect this change.
Can I adjust the time display in emails to match my local server time?
No, the UTC server time cannot be adjusted in Qualio email notifications.