Daylight saving time

Use this article to prepare your schedules, forecasts, and reports for a daylight saving time (DST) change. DST moves clocks forward an hour in spring and back an hour in fall, so on those days a day is 23 or 25 hours long. The exact dates differ by country and region, so check when the change happens where your team works.

To check coverage on a change day, go to Schedule > Staffing timeline and select the change date.

How Assembled handles daylight saving time

Shifts and events on your team’s schedule, time off, forecasts, and data from your integrations are saved as exact moments in time. A time change doesn’t change that data; it only changes how it’s displayed in local time.

Some areas of Assembled, such as templates, working hours, and recurring events, save times with a time zone, such as 9:00 AM in America/Chicago. Assembled works out the real times separately for each day using that day’s rules, so a 9:00 AM start stays at 9:00 AM local time before and after a change. The time zone used depends on the area:

• Templates use their Daylight saving time zone, which you choose for the template.
• Working hours use the time zone set on each rule.
• Recurring events use the time zone chosen when the event is created.
• Your schedule views use your own time zone from Configure > My settings. You can add more time zones to the Staffing timeline.

The Staffing timeline on change days

In Day view, an icon marks the first hour after the change. Hover over it to see Daylight saving time begins or Daylight saving time ends. In Week view, that day’s column is slightly narrower or wider than the others.

Working hours, schedule generation, templates, and recurring events on change days

• Start times stay the same. An event that starts at 9:00 AM on other days starts at 9:00 AM on a change day.
• Each event keeps its length. Events that run through the change end an hour later on the clock in spring, or an hour earlier in fall.
  • For example, a 2-hour event from 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM runs from 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM on spring-forward day.
  • On fall-back day it runs from 1:00 AM to 2:00 AM. That’s still 2 hours, because 1 AM happens twice.
• Overnight shifts work the same way. A working hours shift from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM ends at 7:00 AM after spring forward and at 5:00 AM after fall back. It’s still 8 hours long.
• Starts in the skipped or repeated hour move. An event set to start during the skipped hour (for example, 2:30 AM in the US) moves by one hour. An event set to start during the repeated hour is placed in one of its two occurrences.

Keep in mind: If you schedule anything between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM, check the change day after you apply a template.

Forecasts on change days

When Assembled builds a forecast, it lines up past data by local time, using the time zone of the queue’s business hours, or your company’s default time zone. That way, a Monday at 9:00 AM is compared with past Mondays at 9:00 AM, even across a change.

Times in a forecast upload are read in the time zone you choose on the upload form. A file in local time can’t describe a change day cleanly: a skipped hour doesn’t exist, so rows for it can’t be saved as written, and a repeated hour appears twice, so both rows land in the same interval. If you can, export your forecast in UTC and choose UTC on the upload form.

Reports on change days

• Hourly and 15-minute reports show 23 or 25 hours for a change day.
• Daily and longer totals use your company’s default time zone, so a change day is a single 23- or 25-hour day.
• Some reports show a warning when your date range includes a time change, such as Trends and Forecasted vs. Actual. Daily totals or averages for some metrics on and after that date may be off.

To get accurate daily totals, select a range that doesn’t include the change day, and look at the change day separately.

Prepare for a time change

You can do all of this before the change date.

1. Go to Schedule > Staffing timeline, select the change date, and check your coverage.
2. Look for shifts and events between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM, and for overnight shifts that run through the change.
3. If you’ve applied a template to the change week, check that day after applying it.
4. Upload forecasts for the change week in UTC.
5. For reports, select date ranges that start or end around the change day.
6. Make sure each person’s time zone is set to the city where they work (for example, America/Chicago), not a fixed offset.
7. Keep your browser and operating system up to date. Some views use your browser’s built-in time zone information.

When it’s done, the change day on the Staffing timeline shows the coverage you expect.

When a region stops observing daylight saving time

Governments sometimes end or change daylight saving time. For example, since November 1, 2026, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and northwestern Ontario no longer change their clocks. They stay on summer time all year.

Assembled uses the public time zone database, which records the rules for each region under a city-based time zone name, such as America/Vancouver. When a region changes its rules, the database is updated, and Assembled follows it:

• Templates, working hours, and recurring events set to the region’s time zone follow the new rules automatically. A 9:00 AM start stays at 9:00 AM local time.
• The Staffing timeline, My schedule, and reports show the new offset. There’s no 25-hour day for the region on the old fall-back date.
• Differences between time zones change. For example, in winter Vancouver is 2 hours behind New York instead of 3. Agents scheduled from a template in another time zone, such as Eastern time, start an hour later or earlier in local time, so review those schedules.
• Shifts already on the schedule are exact moments, so they don’t move. If start times look an hour off after a region’s rules change, re-apply the template for those dates.
• Forecasts don’t need any changes, because past data is lined up by local time.

To prepare:

• Set each person to the city-based time zone for where they work (for example, America/Vancouver rather than America/Los_Angeles). Don’t use a fixed offset or a nearby time zone.
• Keep your browser and operating system up to date. Some views use your browser’s built-in time zone information.