Absences API: updated_at and created_at timestamp values invalid

Hey @Zejo 

Welcome to the Personio Community 🙂

Our API transfers data in the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). This also applies to the calendar integration for calendar entries just to let you know. I would kindly ask that you convert the time information to match the time zone you are in. 

I am happy to assist you in any other issues you may be having.

Best,

Conor

@ConorCunningham I may not have emphasized this point enough, the absence created_at and updated_at timestamps are unreliable (wrong datetime, shifted by one hour at least) if one creates an event manually in the Personio UI (Absence Calendar).

Creating an event via API leads to a correct timestamp.

To illustrate, both of the following events were created a few minutes apart, the first one manually in the browser (wrong timestamps, the current time in the Berlin/Paris TZ is 16:30), the second one via API (correct timestamps):

[
    {
      "type": "TimeOffPeriod",
      "attributes": {
        "id": 175968804,
        "status": "approved",
        "comment": "Test Test",
        "start_date": "2023-01-06T00:00:00+01:00",
        "end_date": "2023-01-06T00:00:00+01:00",
        "days_count": 0,
        "half_day_start": 0,
        "half_day_end": 0,
        "time_off_type": {
          "type": "TimeOffType",
          "attributes": {
            "id": 184018,
            "name": "Parental leave",
            "category": "parental_leave"
          }
        },

        "created_by": "Jonas Zeiger",
        "certificate": {
          "status": "not-required"
        },
        "created_at": "2023-01-16T17:09:14+01:00",
        "updated_at": "2023-01-16T17:09:14+01:00"
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "TimeOffPeriod",
      "attributes": {
        "id": 175969523,
        "status": "approved",
        "comment": "vacation: test 123",
        "start_date": "2023-01-09T00:00:00+01:00",
        "end_date": "2023-01-09T00:00:00+01:00",
        "days_count": 0.5,
        "half_day_start": 0,
        "half_day_end": 1,
        "time_off_type": {
          "type": "TimeOffType",
          "attributes": {
            "id": 155627,
            "name": "Vacation",
            "category": "paid_vacation"
          }
        },

        "created_by": "API",
        "certificate": {
          "status": "not-required"
        },
        "created_at": "2023-01-16T16:14:44+01:00",
        "updated_at": "2023-01-16T16:14:44+01:00"
      }
    }
]

Please have somebody from engineering have a look at this.

I tested this issue in a browser with TZ=America/New_York set and the timestamp shift seems to be independent from the local timezone (at least).

So you either fix this issue or I have to add a special workaround to my code handling updated_at that follows this pseudo-code:

// This will only work reliably if the time between calling this function
// and the update, leading to the "updated_at" being set, are at most 1h apart.
function getUpdatedAtWorkaround(timeOff) {
    const updatedAt = new Date(timeOff.attributes.updated_at);
    if (timeOff.attributes.created_by !== 'API' || +updatedAt >= Date.now()) {
        updatedAt.setTime(updatedAt.getTime() + (-1 * 60 * 60 * 1000)); // -1h
    }
    return updatedAt; 
}

@Zejo did you receive an adequate solution or are you still using your work around? We are having issues with the entries from the future.