Which time zone does Zendesk use?

Question

Which time zone does Zendesk use?

Answer

Timestamps can be displayed in different time zones across your Zendesk account, depending on your configuration. Click the tabs below to see where to view and configure time zones across Zendesk. 

Support time zone

Talk time zone

Chat time zone

API

End user portal

Ticket timestamps

Ticket timestamps appear in the time zone set on your user profile. Each user on the account can have a different time zone. However, by default, all user profiles are set to the primary Zendesk account time zone.

To view or update the primary Zendesk account time zone

1. In Admin Center, click the Account icon () in the sidebar.
2. Navigate to Appearance > Localization.
3. Select the appropriate time zone in the Time zone menu.

To view or update an individual user profile time zone

1. Click the Search icon () in the upper right of the top toolbar.
2. Type in the user's name or email address
3. In the top menu, click Users.
4. Choose a user from the list.
5. Find the Time zone field in the side menu and amend it if needed.
   

Talk time zone

There are three different places you might see a Talk timestamp and each location has different rules that dictate the time zone that is displayed. 

Call recording timestamp

Phone call timestamps in a ticket are displayed in the time zone set on the user profile of the agent or admin viewing the ticket. If no time zone is set in the user profile, the timestamp on the ticket defaults to the primary Zendesk account time zone. See the previous tab for more information about how these time zones are set. 

Inbound call timestamp

When your agents receive a call, Zendesk Support creates a ticket with an internal note that indicates the details of the call. The Time of call piece of information uses the UTC timezone.

Talk usage timestamp

The timestamps are shown on the Talk usage page dashboard display in the primary Zendesk account time zone.

 

Chat time zone

Chat uses a mix of UTC, local time, and account settings to display the timestamps. The following sections describe which timezone is displayed across different Chat features.

Chat transcripts

The Chat transcripts in tickets are always displayed in the UTC time zone.

Operating hours and Analytics page

The account time zone is mainly used for operating hours and the Analytics page. For information on setting the chat account time zone, see the article: How do I set the Chat dashboard timezone?

Chat conversations 

Timestamps on the History page and within individual chats appear in the local time. The local time is determined by the system time on the agent device currently being used to view the data.

Website Analytics

The website analytics on the Home dashboard shows statistics in UTC.

As does the CSV export file that you can extract from this feature. 

API timestamps

Timestamps in the API use UTC and are formatted as ISO 8601 strings. For example:2015-04-16T09:14:57Z.

Some endpoints use Unix time, also known as Epoch or POSIX time. For example;1455821369. For more information, see the Zendesk Core API.

End user portal

Timestamps in the help center Customer Portal use the timezone set on the device or operating system that the end user is viewing the ticket from. The timestamp will change automatically based on the timezone set on the device they are viewing the ticket from. 

For more information on dashboard deliveries, see the article: How does Zendesk account for daylight savings time?