Summary
Appointment times shift by one hour when technician and office are in different DST observance zones.
Symptoms
- Scheduled appointment times display incorrectly on the Mobile App or Dispatch Board
- Technicians arrive one hour early or late relative to the customer's expected time
- Time discrepancies occur only during daylight saving time transitions
- Affected appointments were created before the DST change but scheduled for dates after the change
Affected Configurations
- Offices in time zones that observe DST (e.g., Eastern, Central, Pacific)
- Technicians working across zone boundaries, particularly Arizona (no DST) or similar exceptions
- Jobs scheduled more than two weeks in advance of a DST transition
- FieldPulse versions prior to 3.2.4
Cause
The scheduling engine stores appointment times in UTC but applies the office time zone at the moment of schedule creation. When DST status changes between scheduling and execution, the UTC offset calculation does not account for the future DST state. This results in a one-hour drift for appointments scheduled across DST boundaries.
Resolution
Immediate fix for existing appointments:
- Navigate to Dispatch > Schedule
- Identify affected appointments (those falling on or after March 10, 2025 or November 3, 2025)
- Edit each appointment and re-save without changing the time
- The system will recalculate the correct UTC timestamp
Permanent fix:
Update to FieldPulse 3.2.4 or later, which implements proper future-dated DST handling. The scheduling engine now stores the intended local time with zone identifier rather than converting to UTC at creation time.
Prevention
- Verify your Account > Settings > Time Zone matches your physical office location
- Enable the "DST-Aware Scheduling" option in Settings > Scheduling Preferences (available in 3.2.4+)
- Audit appointments scheduled within 30 days of DST transitions
For additional context on time zone configuration, refer to FieldPulse 3.2 Release Notes.