Understanding Time Calculations

More than time zones

In this article, I want to talk to you about time and the way tinyEmail describes time when users schedule a campaign.

Time zones and GMT

Some things in life seem so simple, but they're really quite complicated once you scratch below the surface. Love, money, and cheesecake are three examples.

Time is another one. 

Actually, time itself is easy to understand. It comes, and it goes. The hard part is how we coordinate a time when working with customers, leads, or partners distributed all over the world. 

Sure, we're all familiar with time zones. Some people work in the Eastern time zone (e.g. New York or Toronto), and others are in US Central time (e.g. Dallas). That's one way to tell time.

GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is another way to tell time, and it's super useful when coordinating with people across the globe. It works like this. Every time zone in the world is benchmarked again GMT (which is zero hours) and described with a plus (+) sign or a minus (-) sign.

Here are three examples of regional time zones converted to a GMT standard.

• Eastern daylight time (EDT) = GMT -4
• US Central Daylight Time (CDT) = GMT -5
• Japan Standard Time (JST) = GMT +9

Time zones and GMT are counting the same thing, which is local time. They are two different standards for measuring the same thing. Kind of like the metric system (e.g. meters) and imperial system (feet).

• Click here to open a nifty GMT time converter.

Scheduling a campaign

That's the background. Now let me get to the tinyEmail specifics. When you schedule a campaign, tinyEmail displays a window. This is where you set the day and time to send out an email blast. The scheduled day and time are based on yourlocal time.

How does tinyEmail know your local time? Our computers find your local time by checking your device browser. That information is easy to find. 

• This tool can show you your local time based on your browser. 

So, if you want to schedule a campaign blast for 6:15 am your time, that's what you should enter into the fields, as shown in the screenshot above.

Don't be confused by the number in the Timezone field. That number is auto-generated by our system. It simply displays your time zone converted to GMT. It doesn't affect your campaign delivery schedule, and you can't change it. It's a display number that helps our record-keeping on the backend.

That's the story of tinyEmail and time.

Feel free to contact our support team if you have any questions!