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Sunday November 22nd, 2009

 
NACS > Computing > Oracle Calendar

Oracle Calendar and 2007's new Daylight Saving Time

Summary: On Friday December 15, 2006, the Oracle Calendar server was upgraded for the new Daylight Saving Time rules in 2007 and subsequent years. As a result, events which were previously scheduled to start between the new and old DST start dates, and between the new and old DST end dates, may appear one hour later than intended.

Any affected events must be manually adjusted in order to restore their former start times. See Section 3 for instructions.

  1. New Daylight Saving Time Rules
  2. DST and Oracle Calendar
  3. Adjust Any Affected Events
  4. Reload Data on Devices using Mobile Sync (aka SyncML)

1. New Daylight Saving Time

Prior to 2007, Daylight Saving Time began on the first Sunday in April and ended on the last Sunday in October. Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. This change was signed into law on August 8, 2005 as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

The new DST start and end dates for upcoming years are:

Year
DST Begins
DST Ends
2007
March 11
November 4
2008
March 9
November 2
2009
March 8
November 1
2010
March 14
November 7

 

2. How DST Affects Oracle Calendar

• Oracle Calendar stores events according to the rules for Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time which are in effect when the event is created.
• In the Pacific Time Zone, these rules govern whether time for that day is calculated as either eight or seven hours earlier than Greenwich Mean Time, also known as the offset from Coordinated Universal Time.
• Events which take place during Pacific Standard Time are stored as UTC-8, while events during Pacific Daylight Time are stored as UTC-7.
The change in Daylight Saving Time makes some events in Oracle Calendar appear to start one hour later than expected.


For example, under the prior rules the start time for an event on March 30, 2007 would be stored as UTC-8 (Standard Time), or eight hours earlier than GMT. However, under the new rules time on March 30 is calculated as seven hours earlier than GMT. The event was recorded, and still displays, with an eight-hour offset; thus, the event now appears to start one hour later.


This change affects events which were scheduled prior to December 15, 2006, and which take place during the interval between Daylight Saving Time's old and new start dates, and between the old and new end dates. Those intervals for upcoming years are:

Year
Affected Spring Dates
Affected Fall Dates
2007
March 11 - April 1
October 28 - November 4
2008
March 9 - April 6
October 26 - November 2
2009
March 8 - April 5
October 25 - November 1
2010
March 14 - April 4
October 31 - November 7

 

3. Adjust Any Affected Events

Due to the way Oracle Calendar stores events, affected events must be manually adjusted to match their proper start time. To do so, log into Oracle Calendar and navigate to the affected date ranges. If an event's start time is incorrect, the event owner must drag the individual event to its proper start time.

To assist in this process, a copy of the Oracle Calendar data with the old Daylight Saving Time rules is available for comparison. This data is stored on an alternate server, and should not be modified. In order to avoid confusion, NACS recommends using the alternate server's web client to access your calendar and print out agendas for the affected dates.

1.

Using your Web browser, log in to the alternate Calendar server.
http://ctdev.es.uci.edu/
http://ctdev.es.uci.edu/
2.

Click on the Calendar icon (Calendar icon) then navigate to the affected dates.

 
Navigate to the affected dates.
3. Change to the Weekly Planner view by clicking on the "Weekly List" link.
Print the Planner View.
4.

Select "Print" from the File menu.

Compare your current agenda with the printout, and adjust any events to match the proper start time.

 

4. Reload Data on Devices using Mobile Sync (aka SyncML)

For those using Oracle Calendar with the wireless Mobile Sync (aka SyncML) option, you must reload the data on your device. This data reload is necessary due to patches recently added to the Oracle Calendar service. Users with the Synthesis client can perform this operation by changing their synchronization type: