Time Stamp Incorrect In BusinessObjects Auditing Database

Developers that are just getting started with BusinessObjects, or experienced developers that are not highly familiar with the internals of BusinessObjects, might be surprised when they view the BusinessObjects Auditing Database and find that it is incorrectly saving the time an event took place.

In actuality though, it is not. BusinessObjects, by design, saves the time stamp of an event in accordance with Greenwich Mean Time; in other words, the time your seeing is the time in Greenwich, England. To convert the time to your local time zone, it is as simple as adding or subtracting the number of hours difference between your local time and Greenwich.

For example, here in Egypt our timezone is GMT +2, which means we are 2 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. So naturally, to convert the time stamp BusinessObjects is saving, I just add 2 hours when retrieving it from the database.

So where do convert? I would recommend you do it on the Universe level so that any reports you create that are dependent on the time stamp would not need any special formatting individually.

So now to the final question; Why is this by design? Coming straight from SAP Support:

This is by design in order to ensure and maintain the consistency of events no matter where the server is deployed or where the user is logging in.