SC Connector use american date format, why?

[sjensen]

Enviromental information:

ServiceCenter 3.0.9 A9901 running on AIX 4.3.3 server. Connect-It 3.1.0 2632 GA running on a NT 4 workstation

Scenario:

No records returned using Schedule Pointer in Connect-IT with a ServiceCenter Connector

Problem:

We have now tried different constellations of date formats on the AIX server, ServiceCenter and the NT Client, but whatever we do it still uses the MM/DD/YYYY query instead of DD/MM/YYYY and returns records according to that. An example: The query looks as shown on the attached picture CIT_query.pcx: The intended result should be all records modified since December 11 2002 08:20:00 The actual result is all records modified since November 12 2002 08:20:00 The ServiceCenter Company Record looks like shown on the attached picture SC_comp_rec.pcx (and all operators use the same timezone and date format). We have tried to run the CIT scenario, where we had changed the Format in the Company Record to MM/DD/YYYY. This didn't make any difference. We also tried to change the date format on the NT workstation (Control Panel- International, as shown in ContrPanel.pcx) to MM/DD/YYYY before running the scenario, but that only changes the date displayed in the scenario, it doesn't affect the query: The Document view looks as shown on the attached picture DocView.pcx. Somewhere in CIT there must be some code, which decides what date format to use in the query. What is that decision based on? and how can we change it? or is it even hardcoded? - Have any of you had the same experience?

By the way, how do you switch on auto-calculate in CIT?

I can upload mentioned screenshot later on if you like. This one is teasing us, what are we doing wrong?

[tommy]

Generally speaking dates in Connect.It is handled very poorly.

That said I have not had any problems with the pointers and the query sent to SC.

I run CIT on windows 2000 with danish timezone/format.

SC currently on MVS, SC3SP3 with UTC timezone and danish timeformat.

[cljen]

What happens if you let all systems run with danish setup with one exception: change the date format in the Company records in ServiceCenter to mm/dd/yyyy? I admit it is a long shot but I had a kinda similar date problem creating pmo's from Connect-It.

[sjensen]

Well the impact has now been reproduced at Peregrine EU Level 2 and our guru Walter Steppat actually managed to locate where the hardcoded stuff came from using a HEX-EDITOR and the impact is related to Connect.It and Connect.It ONLY.

Until an SCR is issued from Peregrine we will not post the nasty workaround simply because it is not supported.

We have just received Connect.It 3.2 and we will look in that version as well.

Claus I can gurantee you that we have examined date on the OS it self, in our case AIX, we went into SC and doublechecked the dateformat in the comapny record and also in the operator record and finally we look at the NT workstation where we had the scenario running. All locations had the right dateformat.

We also told Peregrine Support (IBM Support) that we had replicated in OOB (Out of the Box) installations, yes we had to install another environment just to eliminate the fact that our environment had a mis-configuration. At some point they (Peregrine) wanted a copy of our system, why ??? It was replicated in OOB systems.

Well thumbs up to Mr. Simon Nasrallah in Peregrine EULevel2, because he really made an effort to replicate the issue which he did, admitted it was not an easy one, but I believe that some one should write a TechNote about this and share the information.

/Steen

[sjensen]

A hotfix has been created for us on this issue and we will test. I have forwarded the dirty workaround to Mr. Tommy Jensen from Maersk Data and he confirms that it works, however I prefer to let Peregrine make the change to their code.

I can see on the latest update in my support ticket that a hotfix has been placed on ftp.peregrine.com, yeah right, but in what folder? :-?

/Steen

[sjensen]

Problem is solved in CIT 3.2.0 Build 3165

[tommy]

So it takes the date format from SC now ?

[tommy]

Steen did You do anything special?

My SC use the date format: dd/mm/yyyy

In a text input file I have specified a date field with this format: dd/mm/yy

CIT read the date correct at recognises day, month and year. But it is sent to sc in the wrong format.

So an input date of: 28/02/03 21:35:00
ends up as: 02/03/2028 21:35:00

If I specify the date in the text file as: 28/02/2003 21:35:00 which would be the correct form if CIT follows the format from SC but then CIT says the date is wrong.

[sjensen]

I should learn to read what you actually ask about Tommy, sorry. You got a point, now Peregrine have fixed the issue with the hardcoded dateformat in Connect.It when you want to send data OUT of ServiceCenter.

Your question relates to the fact that you want to send data IN to Servicecenter and guess what? We are dealing with the same problem and we reported it to Peregrine today. Well, I can understand from your comments today on the phone that you already have reported this, so I assume that a SCR has been issued

Our Connect.It guru (Wally The CodeMan) went into the deep "CIT handling date format hole" today and we hope to see a workaround or a fast fix to the reported problem.

//Steen

[tommy]

Well, I can understand from your comments today on the phone that you already have reported this, so I assume that a SCR has been issued
//Steen

Actually Carsten have not had the time to report it yet because we are on a tight deadline and want this project finished before "wasting" time with Peregrine on discussions whether this is a bug or enhancement request :evil:

[sjensen]

We upgraded our SC to version 3.0 SP10 form SP9 in our test environment and the problem dissapeared, so now we can send data into SC without having problems the the dateformat using CIT 3.2.0.

/Steen

[tommy]

Connect.It 3.2.1 has been released and one of the enhancements is that now it should be possible to specify date format for input and output events !

[tommy]

CI 3.2.1 was received so late that we have not had time to test this version with a current interface.

So I used a workaround which is better than zapping the CI executables.

On the input event registration add a line like this in exprressions:

$L.void=rtecall("rinit", $L.rc, $L.file, "tzfile");$L.void=rtecall("select", $L.rc, $L.file, "name=\"Europe/Western2\"", , );set.timezone($L.file, 1)

Note that I have specified Europe/Western2 as timezone, this is not a default timezone but a copy of the existing one with one change. On this timezone I have changed the date format from dd/mm/yy to mm/dd/yy. The result is that CI can continue to send the dates into sc with american date format even if SC is using danish dateformat. The set.timezone command changes the dateformat while the event is processed and everything works out just fine.

[sjensen]

Sounds and look cool, however if the CIT 3.2.1 has been released, why haven't Peregrine put it on the Support Web for download next to the four other downloads? ops: This is just a matter of correct timing.

Finally we can conclude that the CIT "date horror show" is over from a event creation point of view. It is a pleasure to see how Peregrine have enhanced this product since the release of version 2.xx. Now they listen to their customer base.

By the way Tommy, thanks for a cool update from Synergy03.

/Steen