Deadline Calculation in Workflow 2

🎯 Objetivo

This article explains how deadline calculation works in Workflow 2 of netLex, detailing the granularity of deadlines in full days and how the environment's default time zone impacts the visualization and counting of deadlines.

Este artigo contém as seções:

• Full-Day Deadlines
• Time Zone
• Frequently Asked Questions

⏳ Full-Day Deadlines

The minimum granularity for a deadline is in full days.

• When starting a stage with a deadline configured as a set number of days, the deadline will be calculated by adding that number to the stage start date, considering either business or calendar days.
• When starting a stage with a deadline configured in a date property, the deadline will be the date filled in that property.

The deadline remains valid until the end of the final date, regardless of the time the stage began. The same applies to deadline changes.

Examples:

Stage Start	Calendar Day Setting	Deadline Result
04/10/24 10:20 AM	1	04/11/24 11:59 PM
08/27/24 11:50 PM	2	08/29/24 11:59 PM
01/01/25 12:00 AM	1	01/02/25 11:59 PM

In practice, the earlier in the day a stage starts, the longer the effective duration of the deadline. This is because the deadline always ends at the close of the day (11:59 PM) of the final calculated day.

🌍 Time Zone

The platform requires each environment to have a default time zone configured. This allows features like deadlines to adapt to the primary locations of each client. This setting is managed by admin users in the Region & Language option within the settings screen.

An environment may have users in different time zones, but the deadline will always be calculated based on the client's default time zone defined in the environment. As a result, users in time zones different from the company's will see deadlines that do not coincide with the end of the day in their local time.

Examples with a 1-calendar-day deadline setting:

Environment Time Zone	Stage Start (Env)	Stage Deadline (Env)	User Time Zone	Local Deadline (User)
Brasília (GMT-3)	09/01/24 11:00 AM	09/02/24 11:59 PM	Moscow (GMT+3)	09/03/24 05:59 AM
Brasília (GMT-3)	09/01/24 11:00 AM	09/02/24 11:59 PM	Arizona (GMT-7)	09/02/24 07:59 PM

The deadline date displayed in the timeline, active workflow stage, and activity list is relative to the environment's current time zone, and not the time zone from which the user is accessing netLex.

Visual indicators that signal an approaching deadline, such as "tomorrow", or a passed deadline, such as "overdue", are based on the user's local time. The "overdue" status appears the moment the deadline is exceeded—specifically, midnight (00:00) in the environment's time zone. 🔐

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

• Can deadline granularity be less than one day? No, the minimum granularity for deadlines is in full days.


• Does the stage start time influence the final deadline calculation? Deadlines are valid until the end of the target date, regardless of the start time. In practice, starting earlier in the day gives you more effective time. 🚀


• Which time zone is used to calculate the deadline? Deadlines are always calculated based on the default time zone set in the environment's Region & Language settings.


• Are the "tomorrow" or "overdue" indicators based on my local time zone? Yes, these visual indicators are based on the user's local time, although the technical "overdue" status is triggered by midnight in the environment's time zone.