Daylight Saving time issue between BPM and RFC call.

[Former Member]

We are having a date issue between our BPM process and an RFC call.

We are receiving a date from SAP via the RFC call. The date here is correct, as we have created a web service for the RFC and tested the value that we receive.

However if we receive the date from the RFC directly into the BPM process, then the date is set to 1 hour behind. If we are using the Date type, this is an issue, as the time part of the date is not stored. So this then means that a date say of 1/6/2014 is set to 31/5/2014 (format dd/mm/yyyy). Because some of our logic relies on dates this is unacceptable.

We know it is a daylight saving time issue, as if we use a date after october the 27th, then the dates match up...

Any ideas on how to fix this. I have seen some issue with webdynpro and bpm; the result is to get the date as a string and parse it to date format in bpm. We can't really do this as RFC changes would affect a lot of other systems.

We have tried a few different server changes - is there a specific one that will fix this?

Thanks for any help.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

So had a reply from SAP - all the times are handled and mapped as UTC time - so we used a custom EJB function in BPM to convert to the correct time during the DST period, which involved getting the UTC date, formatting to the correct time then parsing the correct time as a return value.

[former_member191643 · Accepted solution]

thanks for the info david.

[Former Member]

Thanks for your replies guys, yeh I kind of agree that It needs to be fixed on the server. But the functions are interesting as an interim workaround. We actually have a BASIS team here, they've checked the server settings and they should all be correct.

We've actually raised the issue with SAP, as apparantly out BW team also has a similar issue. Will update with the answer if i cant find it from these.

[junwu]

how about the timezone setting for you BPM? is it the same as your abap server?

what's the timezone for your bpm java server?

[Vasilis]

Hi David,

check this note:

Note 1436823 - NetWeaver BPM:Date Type entered coming +/-1 day

Regards,

Vasilis

[Former Member]

Thanks, unfortunately we are not using Web Dynpro for this - we are using direct RFC import to BPM. We would really also not like to change the RFC to a string return if possible. Why is there this date difference between RFC and BPM.

Is there some metadata that holds the RFC timezone different to BPM?

[former_member191643]

Hi David,

I am not sure but you can try using the 'RemoveTimeZone' function available in the expression editor in BPM.

You can use this function in the Input/Output mapping of the Automated Activity where you have made a call to your RFC and modify the output parameter(the date received from the RFC) using this function and pass it to the BPM Process Context.

You can use this function by double-clicking on the output parameter of the RFC(output mapping of the Automated activity which calls the RFC) which will open the expression editor.

Please see this image for the function in expression editor:

Let me know if this helps.

Regards,

Siddhant

[junwu]

buddy have you ever read this help?

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nwce72/helpdata/en/b7/5dab1a4d4741caa2460bb2300b7029/frameset.htm

[former_member191643]

Hi Jun,

No I did not read this article before. So this function only removes the time-zone from the Date-time.

Thanks for the information.

As i said in the first line itself, 'I am not sure'.

Anyways, in David's case, is there any conflict with the server timing,which may or may not have time-zone/offset difference?

In that case, as SAP has mentioned in SAP NOTE: 1436823, suggest converting the dateTime value into string using 'String(dateTime)' function, so that the string value cannot be affected by offset/timezone difference.

Hope I am right and hope this helps.

Regards,

Siddhant

[junwu]

you even don't know the functionality, how come you ask someone to try.......

second you don't understand the note

the date time is converted to the string using server time zone and by using same timezone the string is converted back to date time, as those two conversion happen in same java server.

same time zone is the key, not the string.

[former_member191643]

Ohkay..thanks for the information.