What time zone does Power Automate use?

Dates and times are commonly used within your automated workflows. You might wonder what time zone Power Automate uses, especially when dealing with datetime conversions across different geographical locations.

Power Automate operates in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

However, you can easily convert date and time values to your local time zone using the Convert time zone action or convertTimeZone function. This ensures that scheduled tasks and shared workflows perfectly align with your preferred time settings.

When utilizing Power Automate, it’s crucial to account for any time zone differences to avoid unexpected results.

Understanding the default time zone and how to convert it can help you efficiently manage your workflows across teams and locations.

Understanding Time Zones in Power Automate

Time zones are regions of the earth that observe the same standard time due to their longitudinal position. In Power Automate, time zones play a crucial role when you’re working with dates and times.

This is especially true when dealing with international workflows. It’s important to understand how Power Automate handles time zones to ensure the accuracy of your workflows.

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary standard for timekeeping across the world. Power Automate uses UTC as its default time zone to maintain consistency across different systems.

You may need to convert time zones within your flows to accommodate users in different locations. This can be achieved with either the Convert time zone action or using the convertTimeZone function.

These allow you to convert a given date and time from one time zone to another.

Time Zones in the Power Automate Portal

When working with Power Automate, you will see all the dates and times in the portal are in your own Microsoft account timezone.

Items such as the run times, created dates, or modified dates will all be in your time zone.

Time Zones in the Run History CSV

When you download a CSV with the flow run history, you will notice the run dates and times are no longer in your timezone. All dates and times will be in UTC inside the CSV.

💡 Tip: The run history can be downloaded as a CSV from flow Details > All runs > Get .csv file.

Time Zones During a Flow Run

Certain triggers such as the Manually trigger a flow button trigger will record the date and time that the flow was triggered. This can be used as dynamic content within your flow. Here you will note the date and timestamp created will be in UTC.

Converting Date & Timestamps

You can convert and format dates and times with the help of expressions and actions.

When working with date and time values, you might encounter various time zones. By using the convertTimeZone function, you can easily convert the timestamp between UTC and the destination time zones.

convertTimeZone('2023-01-01T08:00:00.0000000Z', 'UTC', 'Pacific Standard Time')

To use this function, you need to provide a timestamp, a source time zone, and a destination time zone. For example, if you want to convert a time from UTC to Pacific Standard Time (PST), you can use the above expression.

Other common timezones that you might convert to include these.

• Central America Standard Time
• Atlantic Standard Time
• Central European Standard Time
• Greenwich Standard Time
• Eastern Standard Time

Here, you can find a full list of available timezones you can use with this function.

convertFromUtc('2023-01-01T08:00:00.0000000Z', 'Pacific Standard Time')

If you’re converting from UTC to another time zone, this expression can be simplified by using the above convert FromUtc function.

This function assumes your timestamp is UTC so requires one less argument input compared to the convertTimeZone function.

Timezone conversion can also be achieved with the Convert time zone action.

1. Add the Convert time zone action to your flow.
2. Add the timestamp to convert to the Base time field.
3. Select the date time format to return from the Format string dropdown. This allows you to return a specific format other that the standard date and time stamp.
4. Select the Source time zone from the dropdown. This is the time zone in which the Base time is in. Select UTC if you want to convert a UTC time to another time zone.
5. Select the Destination time zone from the dropdown. This is the time zone that you want to convert the Base time into. For example, select Eastern Time to convert the time from UTC to EST.

These methods will allow you to convert any UTC timestamp you come across within your flow into your desired time zone.

Conclusions

Your flows often use timestamps and implied time zones.

Power Automate operates in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). However, you can easily convert the timestamps to your desired time zone using the built-in actions and functions.

When working with dates and times you need to be careful with time zones. Always make sure to convert any UTC timestamps according to your target time zone.

Remember that the default time zone in Power Automate is UTC.

Have you come across issues due to a default UTC timestamp being used? Let me know in the comments!