1338090 - Special Field 'Print time' in Crystal Reports XI Release 2

Crystal Report special field ‘Print Time’ shows time of the Web (Application) Server instead of end-user local time when opened from InfoView.

1. Set the BusinessObjects Enterprise installed Windows Server Time and Date to U.S Timezone.
2. Choose a client machine and set its Windows Date and Time to, say, U.K Timezone.
3. Login to InfoView from client machine and set Preference 'My current time-zone is U.K’.
4. Now open a Crystal Report having the special field ‘Print Time’ from the client machine.
5. Observe that the report shows U.S time instead of U.K time

Environment Information

• BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 2
• Crystal Reports XI Release 2

• The behaviour of special field 'Print Date' when a Crystal Report is opened in InfoView is by-design of the product.
• Crystal Reports does not automatically time-shift a field since it does not know the time zone of the data/report. It does not auto-consider the need to shift the time.

Workaround Solution:

Crystal Reports does provide a formula function that you can use: "ShiftDateTime". When combined with the special field, CurrentCEUserTimeZone, you can shift the print time of the current user like this:

ShiftDateTime(DateTime(PrintTime), PrintTimeZone, CurrentCEUserTimeZone)

KBA , BI-RA-CR , Crystal Reports designer or Business View Manager , How To