Account timezone | Knock Docs

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Account timezone

Learn how to set an account timezone and understand when the selected timezone will be applied.

Setting account timezone

You can update your account's default timezone on the General page of your dashboard settings.

Account timezone settings in the Knock dashboard

This setting applies to the entire account and informs how Knock evaluates time-based workflow behavior. Timestamps shown throughout the dashboard, such as in logs and message activity, render based on your browser's local timezone rather than the account timezone.

Timezone-aware features

These features require timezone resolution:

Channel step send windows. Determines when a message from the step is allowed to send.
Recurring workflow schedules. Determines when the next scheduled workflow run will execute.
Window rules in batch, delay, and throttle steps. Determines when a batch window, delay, or throttle is active.

Steps configured with a fixed duration, such as 15 minutes, or with a timestamp from your trigger data are not timezone dependent.

Resolving timezones

When a workflow evaluates time-based behavior, Knock resolves the timezone in this order:

Recipient timezone. The timezone is localized to the recipient when there is a valid timezone property available on the user or object.
Account timezone. Recipients without a valid timezone of their own fall back to the account setting.
Default timezone. The timezone defaults to Etc/UTC when recipient and account timezones are unavailable.

Frequently asked questions

Etc/UTC does not observe daylight saving time, so any rule resolved against it holds the same UTC time all year. Regions that observe daylight saving time change their offset from UTC twice a year, so the local time your recipients experience moves with it.

For example, let's say your account timezone is Etc/UTC, you haven't set timezone on your users, and you schedule a recurring notification for 14:00. All of your users will receive that recurring notification at 14:00 UTC. Recipients on the East Coast of the United States receive it at 9:00 ET through the winter, when their local time runs five hours behind UTC. When their local time moves to four hours behind UTC in the spring, the same 14:00 notification arrives at 10:00 ET instead.

Setting the account timezone to the region you operate in, such as America/New_York, or setting timezone per recipient can help maintain a stable user experience for recurring notifications throughout the year.

Changing the account timezone takes effect immediately. Where you use timezone-aware features, the new account timezone will impact when recipients without their own timezone receive messages. Your schedules, send windows, and window rules retain their existing configurations and begin to resolve against the new timezone where applicable.

Time the change deliberately to avoid sending messages at unexpected times.

We recommend determining how your account will resolve timezones before you implement any timezone-aware features. Revisiting that decision later may require adjusting recurring schedules or updating various configurations across active workflows.