Overview

Beeswax supports Buzz Accounts in local timezones. Customers can set a timezone on the Account-level, which will enable Beeswax services to operate in that timezone, the main elements being reporting and start- and end- dates of objects such as campaigns and line items.

Timezones

• All reporting will be local to the account’s timezone. For example, a date range of 00:00 October 1st → 00:00 November 1st will require no hour offset to account for timezones.
• The inline Quickstats on the Advertiser, Campaign, and Line Item pages are populated according to the timezone set at Account-level.
• Start and End dates of Line Items, Campaigns, Creative Flights and Line Item Flights are all local to the Account's timezone.

Using the Timezones Feature

This feature needs to be enabled on a per account basis. Please reach out to Beeswax Support to enable it for you.

If your Buzz Key does not have a multi-account configuration, let Beeswax Support know the timezone this should be set to and we will configure it for you. 

If you do have multi-account privileges and you are an Administrator, you can operate this feature self-serve by editing an account with the required timezone:

1. Navigate to the Accounts page.
2. Click the pencil icon (on the far right of the screen) to edit an existing account. 

3. Select the timezone from the Timezone dropdown.

4. Click the appropriate option to Save & Continue or Save & Exit.

If you require a timezone which does not appear in the UI dropdown, feel free to reach out to support@beeswax.com with the timezone in question, who will be able to assist.

Implications of Changing Timezone 

Running a Campaign (Serving)

All Start Dates and End Dates on all levels of a campaign setup will follow the new timezone that was set at account level. This includes the start and end date of a Campaign, Line Item, Line Item Flight, Creative Association (creative_line_item) and Creative.

All budget setups will also follow the timezone set at the account level.

Quickstats

Quickstats refers to the in-line stats views available on the Advertiser, Campaign and Line Item pages

After a new timezone has been set, any of the Today/Yesterday/7-Day/30-Day metrics in Quickstats will be updated relative to the new timezone on a go-forward basis. 

Real-time Bidding Stats

Real-time Bidding Stats shows bids and wins in real-time for a given line item. In the case where you change timezones while an existing Line Item is running, the stats will remain in the previous timezone for up to 72 hours.

FAQ

Q: What happens if I do not set a timezone for my Account(s)?

A: By default, all Accounts new and old will still default to the America/New_York.

Q: What about any saved queries I have? Will those retroactively work?

A: Your saved queries will continue to work. However, if you change your existing timezone from ET to a new timezone, any date filters in the saved query will not change and queries will be run against the new timezone setting. This means if you had previously set an offset to your local time in your API implementation report_queue calls may need to be adjusted.

Q: Does this affect the report schedules for scheduled reports?

A: No, those operate independently and are not timezone-sensitive. Customers should expect Weekly/Daily/Monthly reports to appear in their inboxes around the same time they always have.

Q: What happens when an account switches timezones when there are live line items?

A: To ensure that we don’t suddenly switch allocated spend due to a timezone change mid-day, we execute the timezone cutover in the serving system 2 days after the timezone account change is made in Buzz. This ensures that the current day’s spend is not affected and the system has a clear cutover on the day of the switch.

We can see different data depending upon the new set timezone versus the last timezone of the account. 

Example 1 - Switching to a timezone that is behind the account’s current timezone. Changing from America/New_York(UTC-5:00) to America/Los_Angeles(UTC-8:00) which is 3 hours behind.

The 2nd Day will have a 24+3=27 hour day to account for it switching to a time zone that is 3 hours behind. This prevents the line item from not bidding during the difference in the time zones.

Example 2 - Switching to a timezone that is ahead of the account’s current timezone. Changing from America/Los_Angeles(UTC-8:00) to America/New_York(UTC-5:00) which is 3 hours ahead.

We would expect that on the day before cutover, that we have a shorter day (-3 hours) due to the new timezone being ahead of the current one.

Q: What happens to the time set for Start Date and End Date?

A: All Buzz Accounts are currently defaulted to America/New_York(UTC-5:00). When the Account timezone is changed, the system does not modify the Start Date and End Date, it only translates those times to the new timezone.

Q: How is Pacing affected?

A: For line items running on a strategy with pacing, it will pace on the time zone the account is set for. For pacing during the day of the timezone cutover, the line item will pace according to the number of hours it is allocated for bidding that day.

Example 1 - Switching to a timezone that is ahead of the account’s current timezone .
Changing from America/Los_Angeles(UTC-8:00) to America/New_York(UTC-5:00) which is 3 hours ahead. The day before the cutover (still on America/Los_Angeles(UTC-8:00)) will only have 21 hours of bidding and will pace over 21 hours.

Example 2 - Switching to a timezone that is behind the account’s current timezone.
Changing from America/New_York(UTC-5:00) to America/Los_Angeles(UTC-8:00) which is 3 hours behind. The day before the cutover (still on America/New_York(UTC-5:00)) will only have 24+3=27 hours of bidding and will pace over 27 hours.