Timezones

Every organization has one timezone. Activity Messenger uses it to show class times, form opening times, invoices and messages to your clients. Some screens in the administration area use the timezone of the computer you are working on instead. When the two are different, the same moment can show a different clock time on different screens. This guide explains which screen uses which timezone and how to fix a mismatch.

Before you start

You need permission to edit the organization to change the timezone. To compare screens, have a class or a form with an opening date open in two browser tabs.

Set the organization timezone

Open your organization settings and choose General › Information.
Choose a value in Timezone. The list has 19 options, from Newfoundland (St Johns) and Eastern (New York) to Alberta (Edmonton), Pacific (Vancouver), Hawaii no DST (Honolulu), Paris and Dubai.
Click Update. A confirmation reads “Organization was successfully updated”.

A new organization starts on Eastern (New York) unless another value is chosen when it is created. The list shows the zone and the main city, so choose the one that matches where your activities take place, not where you work from.

Changing the timezone does not rewrite the times already saved on your classes, bookings or forms. Activity Messenger keeps each time as a single moment (stored in UTC) and only changes the clock time it shows from the organization timezone. A class saved for 7:00 PM Eastern will show as 6:00 PM after you switch to Central (Chicago). If you changed the timezone because it was wrong from the start, review your upcoming classes and form opening times afterward.

Other things that follow the organization timezone when you change it:

Settings expressed as a clock time, such as an automation or reminder that sends at 9:00 AM, are read in the organization timezone.
If you use aging report snapshots, their schedule is recalculated for the new timezone.

If your organization operates in Alberta and is still set to Mountain (Denver) or Mountain no DST (Phoenix), contact support before changing the setting: support can move the organization to Alberta (Edmonton) while keeping the local clock time of future classes and bookings.

Which timezone each screen uses

Where you see a time	Timezone used
Public registration forms: class and event times, the “This form is closed. We will accept submissions starting …” message, “Registrations open on …” and “Registrations ended on …”	Organization
Date and time answers on public forms (date pickers and “today” defaults on forms that have a date or class question)	Organization
The “Registration opens on … at …” note under the submit button of a form that is not open yet	Organization on some forms, the visitor's device on others (see Form opening and closing times)
Booking confirmation and schedule change emails	Organization
Dates and times inserted in messages by class and booking placeholders, such as the class start time or the next booking date	Organization
Invoice pages, receipts and account statements, including the account statement PDF	Organization
Calendar files (.ics) for events	Organization
Organization holidays (closure dates)	Organization
Class and event editor, class calendar, bookings calendar, staff calendar and attendance calendar	Device
Date pickers in the form editor (Force start date, Force end date) and the form class and event question editor	Device
Scheduling a message for later (Schedule this send out)	Device
My Account pages for clients and most other pages built with Vue	Device
Public calendar blocks on your website	Device, with a note above the calendar naming the timezone shown

See Calendar colours and views for how the calendars are laid out. Some individual screens state their own rule next to the control. Examples are the class import (organization timezone, shown in the instructions), the class export (the preview uses your device, the download uses the organization timezone and shows the UTC offset), and bulk member expiration (end of the date in the organization timezone). When a screen shows a note about timezones, trust the note.

Keep your computer on the organization timezone

The administration screens detect the timezone of your computer. If its rules differ from your organization's at any point in the next 24 months, a yellow Timezone mismatch banner appears at the top of the page. It reads: “Activity Messenger is using … on this device, which differs from the organization timezone (…). Dates and times may be entered incorrectly.” Click Learn more to see the steps and a diagnostics table.

To fix it, set your computer's timezone to the organization timezone before you enter or change dates and times:

Open the Date & Time settings of your computer.
Turn off automatic timezone detection if it picked the wrong location, then choose the organization timezone or a city in it.
Quit your browser completely, reopen it and refresh Activity Messenger.

Two zones with different names but the same clock rules, for example two cities that both follow Eastern time, do not trigger the banner. If the banner says Activity Messenger could not reliably determine your timezone, update your operating system and browser, and send the diagnostics from Copy diagnostics to support if it stays.

Why a class time is one hour different on the form

You see a class at one time in the class editor and at a time an hour earlier or later on the registration form. This happens when two things are true at the same time:

The class editor shows times in your computer's timezone. The form shows them in the organization timezone.
The two timezones have different UTC offsets on the date of the class. For example, in Activity Messenger's timezone data Alberta (Edmonton) keeps the same offset all year from fall 2026, while Mountain (Denver) moves back one hour on November 1, 2026 and Mountain no DST (Phoenix) is already one hour behind Edmonton. A class saved for 7:00 PM from a computer set to Alberta time then shows as 6:00 PM on a form for an organization still set to Denver or Phoenix.

See Create a class or event for the class editor.

To find the cause:

Open the class in the class editor and note the time.
Open the registration form as a visitor and note the time shown for the same occurrence.
Look for the Timezone mismatch banner, or compare your computer's timezone with General › Information › Timezone.
If your computer is on the wrong timezone, set it to the organization timezone and refresh. The editor then shows the same time as the form.
If the organization timezone itself is wrong, contact support before changing it, so the saved times can be reviewed.

If the computer and the organization timezone are the same and the times still differ, contact support with the class name and the date you compared.

Form opening and closing times

Forms open and close automatically with Force start date and Force end date in the Form tab. See Build and share your first form and Saving, pre-filling, gating and closing a form for the full steps.

Activity Messenger checks the opening and closing moment on its own clock, not the visitor's.
The date picker in the form editor reads what you type in your computer's timezone and saves the exact moment.
Before the opening, the form shows “This form is closed. We will accept submissions starting …” with the date and time in the organization timezone. If you replaced the text with Modify message, your own text is shown exactly as you wrote it, so include the date and the timezone yourself.
The note “Registration opens on … at …” under the submit button is calculated in two ways. On some forms it uses the organization timezone. On others it is calculated in the visitor's browser and uses the visitor's device timezone, so a visitor in another timezone can see a different clock time. The “closed” message above always uses the organization timezone.

To avoid surprises, work on a computer set to the organization timezone and check the public form after you save.

Daylight saving time

Activity Messenger stores each date and time as a single moment and applies the daylight saving rules of the timezone when it shows the time. When clocks change, the stored moment does not move, but the clock time shown does.

Each class occurrence is stored as its own moment, so its clock time follows the timezone rules for that date.
Mountain no DST (Phoenix) and Hawaii no DST (Honolulu) do not change clocks.
In Activity Messenger's timezone data, Alberta (Edmonton) and Pacific (Vancouver) keep one offset all year from fall 2026, while Mountain (Denver) and Pacific (Los Angeles) still change clocks. An Alberta or British Columbia organization still set to one of the older zones can therefore see times one hour off from the fall change.

After a clock change, open one class before and one after the change date and check that both show the expected time on the form.

Settings reference

Setting	Where	Default	Effect
Timezone	General › Information, then Update	Eastern (New York)	Sets the timezone used for forms, invoices, emails, class placeholders and other server-drawn pages. Saved times are not rewritten.
Banner message to display to the client when they are in a different timezone.	General › Information	Empty (no banner)	Shows your message in a banner on booking package pages when the visitor's timezone is different from the organization's. Supports the placeholders Organization timezone and Client timezone.
Force start date	Form tab, side panel of the form editor	Off	Keeps the form closed until the moment you pick. The picker uses your computer's timezone.
Force end date	Form tab, side panel of the form editor	Off	Closes the form at the moment you pick. The picker uses your computer's timezone.
Modify message	Form tab, side panel of the form editor	Standard message	Replaces the text shown while the form cannot be submitted. The text is shown exactly as written.
Timezone mismatch banner	Top of administration pages	Shown only when your computer's rules differ from the organization's	Warns that dates and times you enter may be saved at a different clock time than intended.

Common questions

Why does the form show a different time than my class? The class editor shows times in your computer's timezone and the form shows them in the organization timezone. When the two have different offsets on that date, the clock times differ. See Why a class time is one hour different on the form.

Which timezone do form opening times use? The form compares the saved moment with its own clock, so the visitor's timezone does not change when it opens. The “We will accept submissions starting …” message shows that moment in the organization timezone. The picker in the editor uses your computer's timezone.

Does changing the organization timezone move my classes? No. It only changes the clock time shown for the same moments. To keep class clock times across a move between two zones, ask support whether a migration is needed.

Why do I see a Timezone mismatch banner? Your computer's timezone has different clock rules from the organization's. Set your computer to the organization timezone, restart the browser and refresh.

Do clients see times in their own timezone? Forms, invoices and emails show the organization timezone. Some pages drawn in the browser, such as the public calendar block, use the visitor's device and tell the visitor which timezone is shown. The booking package page can show a banner when the visitor is in a different timezone, if you set a message in General › Information.

Does daylight saving time change my class times? The stored moment stays the same and the clock time follows the timezone rules. Check one class on each side of the clock change.