No timezone offsets for catalog events

[samtay]

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Magento from develop branch using timezone EST with server time UTC.
2. Create a "Test" category
3. Create a new Catalog Event in the admin panel from different timezones. I had people connect to my local site from different timezones.

Expected result

1. GMT offset occurs properly

Actual result

1. GMT offset does not occur properly. For instance if I navigate to the admin panel on my local machine running UTC, and set the event expiration to 2016-03-16 15:18:00 (2 minutes greater than what my computer is currently displaying), I would expect the frontend to show that there are 2 minutes left on the sale. Instead, it does not offset that saved datetime, and interprets it as EST on the frontend so that the event expires in 4 hours and 2 minutes.

If no one can get around to a fix, please at least respond with a way to do this or some other example in core code where this is done correctly. I am creating a scheduler for CMS content and need examples on how to do this in Magento 2.

[antboiko]

Hello @samtay , sorry for the late reply. We've created internal ticket MAGETWO-52986 to investigate this issue.

Best,
Anton.

[katmoon]

Hi @samtay

Magento Admin expects date/time to be set in Magento timezone, EST in your case.
So if your local machine is in UTC, you should set 2016-03-16 11:18:00 in Admin. This applies to any functionality in Admin, not only CatalogEvents.

@antboiko This is indeed not obvious and we raised this question several times. There was a proposition to add a time clock in Admin so that it's clear what is 'current time' for Admin at least.

@samtay I'm closing the issue for now as this is the expected behavior. Feel free to reopen it if you have any questions left.

Thanks,
Kateryna.