feat: Change schedule datetime inputs in studio to user timezone [BB-5271]

[kaustavb12]

Description

Currently in Studio, the coures date and time inputs in the "Schedule & Details" section are only in UTC. This could be confusing to some user.

This PR changes this to the user's prefered timezone as set by the user in account settings.

Which edX user roles will this change impact? "Course Author"

Testing instructions

1. Login to LMS in the sandbox as staff user
2. Go to account settings, by clicking on arrow beside username in upper-right corner and selecting 'Account' from the drop-down menu
3. Set the Time Zone as prefered
4. Go to Studio and open a course
5. Go to Settings > Schedule & Details
6. Under Course Schedule, check Course date and times.
7. The times should be in the prefered timezone
8. Check the time is correcly offset from UTC time

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[natabene]

@kaustavb12 Thank you for the contribution! Is this ready for our review?

[natabene]

@kaustavb12 I see that your cla check is still red. It should go green after your next commit or force-push.

[kaustavb12]

@kaustavb12 Thank you for the contribution! Is this ready for our review?

@natabene Yes, this is ready for review

@kaustavb12 I see that your cla check is still red. It should go green after your next commit or force-push.

Thank you. I forced-pushed and the CLA check has now passed.

[nizarmah]

Hello @natabene! Would this change require a product review or is it suitable for a core contributor review?

[natabene]

@nizarmah Let me check and post an update here. Thanks for asking.

[natabene]

@nizarmah We will need to do a product review first.

[natabene]

New internal ticket link: https://2u-internal.atlassian.net/browse/TNL-9986

[pkulkark]

@natabene Can this be moved to community review? I can review it then.

[vunguyen-dmt]

In the Course outline, setting Release Date and Time for subsections also uses UTC. If you make changes in Schedule & Details, better make changes to Release Date and Time for subsections for consistency.

[mphilbrick211]

@jmakowski1123 Hi Jenna - just checking to see if anything else is needed to get this through Product review?

[jmakowski1123]

I was able to implement the feature and change to my local time zone, however the change doesn't carry over into the course outline view. Was that intentional? I think we want a consistent experience for the user such that if they choose to change their time zone, it will subsequently adjust all time showings across the UI. See below as the example I found - I see MST in the Settings, but UTC in the outline, in multiple areas.

From the perspective as a former course team member and author, this feature would have been really helpful. I was constantly adjusting time zones in the head and getting anxious about whether I'd set the dates appropriately. That being said, we actively used UTC as a benchmark due to the global reach of our courses. As a future iteration, it might be helpful to have a super simple point-and-click (or even hover?) option for teams to very quickly and easily toggle in real-time between UTC and their local equivalent. Maybe @ProductRyan has more edx user data to support this?

[vunguyen-dmt]

Changing UTC to a specific timezone or user prefer timezone has always been a top request from my clients. Course creators feel unnature and stressed to convert release time. Unfortunately, there are no easy ways for me to customize this feature. I hope we can make it works probably and get this to production soon. And btw please check if the text "UTC" in the template is changed to the timezone being used.

[mphilbrick211]

@jmakowski1123 flagging the author's response above. Please let me know when the Product review is complete. Thanks!

[kaustavb12]

Hi @jmakowski1123

Thanks for checking out the changes in this PR, and for your comments. Sorry the delayed response here.

I think we want a consistent experience for the user such that if they choose to change their time zone, it will subsequently adjust all time showings across the UI.

I agree with you that changing the timezone across the entire studio UI would be a more consistent user experience.

However, our client had a limited budget here, and so decided to prioritize the timezone changes in the settings page only, so that the course authors could set the course dates more confidently and not be confused with having to adjust the timezones while doing so.

I was able to implement the feature and change to my local time zone, however the change doesn't carry over into the course outline view. Was that intentional?

So, yes it is intentional that the change does not carry over to the outline view.

Will that be a blocker for this PR ? Or could we perhaps push this PR forward and have a second PR with timezone changes in the outline (and other) views ?

cc. @mphilbrick211

[kaustavb12]

Hi @vunguyen-dmt

Thanks a lot for your comments and sorry for the delayed response here.

If you make changes in Schedule & Details, better make changes to Release Date and Time for subsections for consistency.

I agree with you that changing timezone across the entire studio UI would be a more consistent experience. However, as I mentioned here the scope of this PR was kept limited to the settings page due to budgetary constraints.

And btw please check if the text "UTC" in the template is changed to the timezone being used.

Yes, the UTC text is changed to the correct timezone designation in the settings page.

[mphilbrick211]

@jmakowski1123 flagging @kaustavb12's question above.

[mphilbrick211]

@jmakowski1123 flagging @kaustavb12's question above.

Friendly ping on this, @jmakowski1123

[cablaa77]

@kaustavb12 thank you for your contribution. Schedule and dates is definitely an important pain point that we would like to address and improve. I do think that if applied to all of the UI, then this feature would be highly appreciated. The end user can implement the feature and change to their local time zone, however the change doesn't apply to the course outline view. We want a consistent experience for the user so that if they change their time zone, it will adjust all time showings across the UI. I do appreciate that your client had a limited budget and decided to prioritize the timezone changes in the settings page only. I do agree with Jenna Makowski’s comment on 12/15 that “as a future iteration, it might be helpful to have a super simple point-and-click (or even hover?) option for teams to very quickly and easily toggle in real-time between UTC and their local equivalent.” So, while I like what has been done, I cannot approve this contribution until it applies to all of the UI (such as course outline).

[kaustavb12]

Thanks for the update @cablaa77 I'll check internally, to see if we can find some extra budget in the near future to work on applying the timezone changes throughout the UI. I'll report back accordingly.

[mphilbrick211]

@kaustavb12 just checking in on this to see if you have an update?

[kaustavb12]

@mphilbrick211 Thanks for checking. I'll schedule a task in our upcoming sprint to come up with an estimate and decide accordingly. I'll ping you here.

[cablaa77]

Thanks Kaustav!

Best regards, Brad Brown Product Manager, edX

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 8:48 AM Kaustav Banerjee @.***> wrote:

@mphilbrick211 https://github.com/mphilbrick211 Thanks for checking. I'll schedule a task in our upcoming sprint to come up with an estimate and decide accordingly. I'll ping you here.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/pull/29674#issuecomment-1429774506, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A2A6OG6RNHL2TJ2OXEB6NETWXOEJDANCNFSM5KTYIHEQ . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

[jmakowski1123]

@cablaa77 @kaustavb12 This the scope of this feature change is going to be larger than the original PR, I've created a Feature Ticket on the Roadmap that can serve as the place for re-defining the scope. Can we please shift further communication here? thanks!

[mphilbrick211]

Hi @kaustavb12 - I realize this is a draft, but just wanted to flag the "shellcheck" tests that have popped up. They will need to be run. Thanks!

[mphilbrick211]

Hi @kaustavb12! Just checking to see if you plan to keep working on this, or if can be closed?

[kaustavb12]

@mphilbrick211 This ticket is on hold till the feature is more fully designed via openedx/platform-roadmap#239 I suppose we can close this ticket for now and create a fresh ticket with the new spec.

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