Working with Duet Enterprise Dates and Times in the User Profile Store

Use Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 External Lists to work with date and time information in Duet Enterprise.

Applies to: Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP Server 2.0 | Office 2010 | SharePoint Server 2010

In this article
Default Recommendations for Date and Time Fields in Duet Enterprise External Lists
Working with Dates and Times in the Duet Enterprise Business Data
Working with Duet Enterprise Dates and Times in the User Profile Store

Duet Enterprise uses SharePoint External Lists, which support date values in the range of 1900-01-01 to 8900-12-31. Duet Enterprise does not support date values outside the range of 1900-01-01 to 8900-12-31.

There are two types of date/time zone fields, time zone dependent (TZD) and time zone independent (TZI). A TZD date/time field is one whose display value varies according to the time zone for the user's locale, for example a meeting starting time field would be use a TZD field.

A time-zone independent (TZI) date/time field is one whose display value does not change regardless of user’s locale. Examples of TZI fields include holiday, birthday, or hire date. Duet Enterprise does not support TZI date/time fields; instead use TZD date/time fields.

Default Recommendations for Date and Time Fields in Duet Enterprise External Lists

The following are the default recommendations for reading and writing date/time information from SAP systems via the Business Data Connectivity (BDC) service into Duet Enterprise solutions.

  • In a WSDL file, use the WSDL xs:dateTime data type instead of a data type such as xs:string.

  • Include a time-zone offset in data values in SOAP.

  • If the field must allow user-unspecified values:

    • Use the Nullable<DateTime> data type in BDC.

    • Use xsi:nil="true" for user-unspecified data values in SOAP, instead of special values such as 9999-12-31.

  • Use the DateTime data type in BDC unless a field must accept the entry of user-unspecified values.

Working with Dates and Times in the Duet Enterprise Business Data

Use TZD-formatted date /time fields when working with business data date/time values. If you are presented with TZI fields, adopt a strategy such as the following to convert this information to TZD format:

  • Include a time-zone offset in the data value.

  • Use noon UTC as the data value.

In addition, be aware of the following date/time issues:

  • Time values in SharePoint are stored in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). To save a calendar item that is set for a different time zone, you would need to create an offset between that setting and the one you want. Add or subtract that offset as appropriate when you save the item. Offsets of 12, 13, and 14 time-zones are not supported. An incorrect date will be shown to users.

  • Create and edit operations are not supported, as their use can lead to possible data loss.

Working with Duet Enterprise Dates and Times in the User Profile Store

Duet Enterprise dates in the User Profile store have the following restrictions:

  • TZI date/time values are NOT supported.

  • Date values outside of the 1800-01-01 to 8900-12-31 range are NOT supported. Date values outside of this range will appear as blank or #value.

See Also

Concepts

Duet Enterprise: Best Practices

Other Resources

Regional Settings Schema (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa979616.aspx)