Be careful with time zones in CRM–> It could be defaulted to GMT 0, Monrovia, Reykjavik

If you happen to install Dynamics CRM 2011 and / or (yet not sure) CRM Outlook Client with the RTM bits (Release To Market, not the most recent ones which already have the latest UR merged in), you may experience some odd behavior regarding to times zones.

Apparently, due to a bug corrected in UR1, the default time zone is not set for users according to the country or region setting in the server (or Online). Instead, it is defaulted to just GMT which appears to be Monrovia, Reykjavik. I’ve found that my colleague Jerry, from CRM innovation faced something similar as posted here.

This could turn into a relevant issue if you happen to build some reports or measure some things based on date or date-time fields. It may also display different dates on the same record for different users (depending on their time zones and if they installed CRM Outlook client from Internet or from RTM bits).

Besides, if using Outlook, it turns difficult to realize the problem, because if you go to File->CRM->Options…

…you won’t find any option to choose your time zone…

…this makes some sense, as it should take the time zone I have set up in my machine …. BUT …….

.. if you go through the Web interface, through Internet Explorer and click on File->Options…

… guess what… you do have an option to select the time zone and guess what… it may be set up for GTM 0 (Monrovia)

So, you have to correct the time zone here in order to properly work with dates and times.

Now, what happens if this problem is being faced by tens or hundred of users?? You may need to instruct one by one on how to do this change.

Luckily, I’ve found this tool, called “CRM2011 User Settings Utility” which helps to list and apply users’ settings to a bunch of users with just a couple of clicks:

Hope this helps to somebody else. It took us a lot to realize the real cause of this problem.

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

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