How Timezones Work in Tellspin Schedules
Every Schedule Has One Timezone
Each Tellspin schedule has its own timezone. It controls everything time-based for that schedule:
- when daily, weekly, or hourly handoffs happen (the Rotation hour),
- when reminders attached to the schedule are sent,
- how override start and end times are interpreted.
A new schedule defaults to the timezone of the person creating it. If your team works in a different region than the person who set the schedule up, check it before saving.
Where to See or Change a Schedule's Timezone
- Open the Tellspin App Home in Slack.
- Click Edit on the schedule.
- Under When do you want to rotate?, the timezone is listed beneath the rotation settings, for example
(UTC-06:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada) [America/Denver]. Click Change Timezone next to it if it isn't the team's timezone. - Search for the zone and save. The picker matches on the zone name and its UTC offset, so if
Denverfinds nothing, try-06:00, or searchAmericaorEuropefor a broader list.
Changing the timezone takes effect immediately: a 09:00 handoff that moves from America/Los_Angeles to America/New_York now happens three hours earlier in absolute time.
Why the Preview Shows Different Times for Different People
Tellspin renders the preview in the viewer's own Slack timezone. A daily schedule whose handoff is at midnight in the schedule's timezone looks like this to a teammate one hour behind:
The same schedule viewed with local dates shows one date per shift:
Both are correct. If the times look odd, check which timezone you are viewing from before changing the schedule. You can also enable Hide end times on shifts under Customization (optional) to keep the preview to a single date per shift.
Daylight Saving Time
Use a location-based timezone (such as America/New_York) rather than a fixed offset. Tellspin follows the location's DST rules, so a 09:00 handoff stays at 09:00 local time through the spring and fall changes.
Common Timezone Problems
- Handoffs happen at the wrong time. The schedule's timezone doesn't match the team's. Edit the schedule and correct it.
- An override starts or ends at the wrong time. Override times follow the schedule's timezone, not the timezone of the person creating the override. See fixing schedule overrides.
- PagerDuty or OpsGenie shows a different person. Synced schedules take their times from the external tool; compare the timezone configured there with the Tellspin schedule. See troubleshooting sync issues.