How time zone values are identified and stored for embed users?

[daniel_zendesk]

Hello community!

Could use your help to clarify how time zone values are actually handled for embed users.

The main documentation page for time zone settings seems to be written from the point of a standard user. You can enable "user specific time zones" and then "each Looker user is assigned to a time zone": https://cloud.google.com/looker/docs/using-time-zone-settings

However, it is not clear how that assignment works and whether the same logic is applicable to embed users or not.

The main documentation page for signed embedding points to a URL parameter (user_timezone) that "sets the value of the viewer time zone option in the time zone drop-down on the embedded Look or dashboard". They even explain how to make the "embedded content to default to the viewer's time zone": https://cloud.google.com/looker/docs/signed-embedding#parameters

However, it is not clear how those time zone values are stored for embed users - i.e. whether they require a separate custom user attribute to be created or whether they will be stored under the preexisting user attribute system setting: https://cloud.google.com/looker/docs/admin-panel-users-user-attributes

This matters because we need an easy way to identify users' timezones in the Looker admin console for development and debugging purposes.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[robertcarr · Accepted solution]

Hi @daniel_zendesk 

Thanks for the detailed question. You will see the user attribute for the timezone already exists under the embed user profile called timezone and you can set that with the create_sso_embed_url call with the parameter user_timezone.

See timezone docs here: https://cloud.google.com/looker/docs/using-time-zone-settings

Regards,
Rob

[daniel_zendesk]

Thanks, @robert!

In that case, do I understand correctly that we should be able to set the embed user timezone value and also update the embed user timezone value whenever it changes in the future?

Just need to pass a different user_timezone parameter to the signed embed URL and the new timezone value will appear under the user attribute "timezone"?

[robertcarr]

Hey @daniel_zendesk 

Correct or you can use API.

Regards,
Rob