Customer Guidance – Late Open/Close Alarms

Last Modified on 11/05/2026 2:32 pm EST

Use this guide when a Late Open or Late Close alarm is generated earlier than expected, for example one hour before the time you expected.

Quick triage

  • Alarm is exactly 1 hour early: the cause is almost always the time zone or Daylight Saving Time (DST) setup. Start at Section 3, then Section 4.
  • Alarm is off by any other amount, or fires on the wrong day: the cause is most likely the schedule. Start at Section 2.
  • Alarm is only early around a DST change date (March or November in the US): see Section 5.

1. Gather the facts

  1. Note the alarm date and time, and the customer's serial number.
  2. Note the time the alarm was EXPECTED, in the customer's local time.
  3. Note whether the alarm date is within a week or so of a DST start or end date.

2. Verify the schedule

2.1 Check the area's schedule

  1. Open the customer and go to Systems → Areas & Zones. A list of Areas is shown. Each Area can be assigned a schedule.
  2. Confirm the correct schedule is assigned to the Area that generated the alarm.

2.2 Check the schedule's times

  1. Select OC Schedules from the menu, then select the schedule from the list.
  2. On the Overview display, confirm the Must Open / Must Close time frames for the day in question are correct. The alarm should be generated after the Must Open / Must Close time (plus any grace minutes defined on the schedule).

2.3 Check for other schedules in play

If the times are not what you expect, another schedule may be overriding the one you are looking at. Schedules override each other in this order (highest first):

  1. Temporary schedules override Holiday, Alternate and Permanent schedules.
  2. Holiday schedules override Alternate and Permanent schedules.
  3. Alternate schedules override Permanent schedules.

Check each type for an entry covering the date in question. If the schedule times are correct and no override explains the alarm time, continue to Section 3.

3. Verify the customer's time zone

3.1 Find the time zone attached to the customer

  1. View the customer. The Details card shows the Time zone description.
  2. Edit the Details card to see the time zone ID (do not save changes unless you intend to correct the time zone). Write the ID down. Similar descriptions can have different IDs (see Section 4.4).

3.2 Check what time the system thinks it is for the customer

The customer activity log shows the customer's local time as calculated by the system.

  1. Check the setting first: SWS → Options → Account Creation/Maintenance, "Display customer logs in their local time".

    • If YES, log times are shown in the customer's local time.
    • If NO, log times are not converted. You must convert them to the customer's local time yourself, using Section 4.
  2. Close the customer, then open it again.
  3. Go to the customer's activity log and find the most recent line "View – customer opened for view" (this assumes the customer activity log display is set to "Standard").
  4. Compare the time on that line with the actual current time at the customer's location. If they differ, the time zone or DST setup is the problem. Note the difference (for example, 1 hour).

4. Verify the time zone definition

Go to SWS → Setup → Time Zones. This lists the time zones defined in the system. Find the time zone ID you wrote down in Section 3.1.

4.1 How to read the Offset

Offset is the number of hours to add to UTC to get local standard time. For GMT-08:00 the offset is -8, so local time = UTC minus 8 hours.

4.2 How to read the DS (Daylight Saving) setting

  • DS NOT checked: the time zone never adjusts for DST. Local time is just UTC plus the Offset.
  • DS checked: after applying the Offset, add the value in the Adjust column (in minutes) while DST is in effect. Adjust is typically 60, so one hour is added during DST.

4.3 How to read the DST start and end rules

  1. If the time zone has two or more rows, use the effective dates. The active row is the one with the most recent effective (starting) date that is on or before the date of the alarm. For example, a row with an effective date of 01/01/2007 is active for any date after that, until a later row takes over.
  2. On the active row, read the start and end rules. For the common US rule:
    • DST begins at 2:00 am on the first Sunday on or after March 8 (that is, the second Sunday in March).
    • DST ends at 2:00 am on the first Sunday in November.
  3. These rules are specific to each region. Outside the US (for example Europe, Mexico or the southern hemisphere) the dates differ. Confirm the row matches the rules for the customer's actual location.

4.4 Check for look-alike time zones

The customer may have been given the wrong time zone. Look for other time zones with the same description or a similar ID, and compare closely with what is shown in customer maintenance.

Example: "GMT-07:00" and "GMT-07:00 ND" are two different time zones even if their descriptions match. The "ND" (no DST) version normally does not have DS checked, so no adjustment is applied after the Offset. A customer in a location that observes DST but attached to the "ND" zone will be correct in winter and one hour off during DST. The reverse also applies: a customer in a location that does not observe DST (for example, Arizona) attached to a zone with DS checked will be one hour off during DST.

4.5 Fix

If the customer has the wrong time zone attached, correct it in customer maintenance (Details card) and re-check the activity log time as described in Section 3.2. If the time zone definition itself is wrong, do not change it yourself; contact Bold technical support.

5. DST change dates

If the alarm happened within a few days of a DST start or end date, compare the exact date and time of the alarm with the start and end rules in Section 4.3. Alarms near 2:00 am on the change date are the most likely to be affected. Include this in your report to support (Section 6).

6. When to contact Bold technical support

If you have followed this guide and still cannot explain why the alarm is generated early, contact Bold technical support and provide:

  • Customer serial number.
  • Date and time the alarm was generated, and the time it was expected (customer local time).
  • Schedule name and type (Permanent / Alternate / Holiday / Temporary) and its Must Open / Must Close times for that day.
  • Time zone ID and description attached to the customer.
  • The "View – customer opened for view" activity log line and the actual local time at the customer.
  • The setting of "Display customer logs in their local time".
  • Screenshots of the customer Details card and of the Time Zones row for that ID.
Copyright © 2024-26 Bold Group All rights reserved.