Need clarification about account timezones and DST in report data

[Florian Lherbette]

Hi,

I've read documentation and other forums thread about how daylight savings time is handled for the account timezones, but I am still a bit confused. Can you please provide some clarification on that?

I do know that the AccountTimeZoneId report field does not take DST into account (and that the UTC offset remains the same throughout the year), and that the SOAP API returns a standard timezone name (without UTC offset specified)

I would like to know if the timezone handling in report does actually work like that:

• Reporting metrics are always correct for the UTC offset returned in the AccountTimeZoneId field
• And report data and AdWords web UI show a 1-hour discrepancy with the actual local time of the user when DST is in effect

Or is it the other way around? (e.g. report data use local time with DST applied and during summer there is a 1-hour offset between the report metrics and the report timezone offset)

-- 

Florian

[Vishal Vinayak (Adwords API Team)]

Hi Florian,

AccountTimeZoneId in various reports returns the time zone that was specified when the account was created. This does not take into account any daylight savings related adjustments. Any such adjustments would need to be done manually in your code.

Also, reporting metrics are not real-time. There is a certain lag between the occurrence of an event and the event data being available via the AdWords web interface / API. For more details, please refer to this guide.

Hope this helps. Please revert in case you have additional questions.

Regards,

Vishal, AdWords API Team

[Florian Lherbette]

Hi Vishal,

Thank your for your answer. But I am still not 100% sure I get it properly.

I did already understand that AccountTimeZoneId does not take daylight saving adjustments into account. But could you please tell me if the following is correct or not:

reporting metrics (and attributes such as HourOfDay) have to be manually adjusted for daylight savings when using AccountTimeZoneId to convert to UTC?

-- 

Florian

[Vishal Vinayak (Adwords API Team)]

Hi Florian,

As mentioned in our data freshness guide (the link to which I shared in my previous response), daily processing of reports happens in the Pacific Time. Hence, you must factor in your account timezone when trying to adjust HourOfDay to your local timezone.