Importing Course created in different timezone - fix all due dates?

[mbwilde]

I'm importing an entire course that was made by a colleague who lives in a different timezone (Pacific), but I live in the Mountain timezone.  All the due dates for assignments and to-do dates for discussions show up on the calendar 1 hour too late.  (ie. they show up at 12:59am on the next day instead of 11:59pm on the proper day).

I've tried changing the timezone for the course in settings, I've tried importing and using the 'adjust due dates' checkbox.

Is there any way to adjust all these dates back by an hour so they land on the proper dates!?

[Chris_Hofer]

@mbwilde ...

There are two additional time zone settings within Canvas.  One of which is at the administrative level (so you'd have to talk with your school's local Canvas admin to see if that one is set correctly) where the entire account can have a time zone specified to where your campus is located.  The second is your own user account time zone setting.  Do you have that set correctly, too?  How do I set a time zone in my user account as an instructor?  It sounds like you are already setting the time zone at the course level.  How do I set a time zone for a course?

Keep us posted on this...thanks!  Take care...be well.

[mbwilde]

@Chris_Hofer 

Thanks for the reply!  It's a tricky one - because I can confirm that the Account's timezone is set correctly.  And it's always worked properly for everything else I've ever done.  I can also confirm that my own user account timezone is set correctly.  Pretty confusing!  With all those details in place, the only thing I can think of is that Canvas is importing the course content knowing that it was created in the Pacific Time Zone, and it's not changing it when it comes over...for some reason.  I even tried editing the course timezone to be the Pacific Timezone (even though I'm in Mountatin) - but that still did not affect any change in the due dates, or the course calendar!  Everything was still 1 hour later than where I need it to be!

Any further ideas??  🙂

[ColtonSwapp · Accepted solution]

Hello @mbwilde 

That is very puzzling! I am very sorry that had happened after you imported the content into your course. 

I don't know what would be causing that to happen. Further testing might be required to figure out why that is happening. You can always try and contact support to see if there is a known issue or work around for avoiding that in the future. They will probably need a copy of the import package you used as well as a link to the course you brought them into. I wanted to add that you do have an option to bulk update all of your assignments and quizzes if you still need to do this in the course. I am including THIS guide just in case. 

Another option I thought of, which I see used commonly is that you can remove the due dates before you do the import. If you were to do that, you would need to manually re-enter the dates after the import is performed. 

For any events in the calendar you would have to manually adjust those one by one. Unfortunately a feature does not exist currently to allow you bulk update items there. 

Hopefully this helps a little! 

-Colton