Daylight Saving Time in MoEngage

Overview

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice of adjusting clocks seasonally to extend evening daylight. While common in many regions, these time shifts can disrupt marketing schedules. To ensure your campaigns remain accurate, MoEngage provides automatic DST support for specific features, guaranteeing messages are delivered at the intended local time without manual intervention.

Use Cases

Automatic DST support helps marketers address several key challenges related to global, time-sensitive communication:

• Global campaign coordination: Ensure time-sensitive promotions, such as flash sales, are delivered precisely at the intended local time across all regions. For example, a product launch scheduled for 10:00 AM in both New York and London will go live at 10:00 AM local time in each city, even if they observe DST on different dates.
• Accurate performance analysis: Maintain consistent and reliable reporting, even when DST changes occur within the analysis period. You can confidently compare user engagement from the week before and the week after a DST shift, knowing that the data is normalized and not skewed by the one-hour time change.
• Precise audience targeting: Build reliable segments using time-based filters without worrying about seasonal changes. A segment of "users active in the last 24 hours" will remain accurate on the day DST starts or ends, ensuring your real-time campaigns reach the correct audience.
• Reliable automated journeys: Trigger time-based entry into flows, such as onboarding sequences, with punctual delivery. An onboarding flow designed to start at 9:00 AM will always trigger at the correct local time, maintaining a consistent user experience.
• Reduced operational overhead: Eliminate the need for manual tracking and adjustment of campaign schedules. Marketers can trust the platform to handle DST transitions automatically, saving time and preventing errors.

DST Support at a Glance

The following table lists which features are automatically adjusted for DST.

How Supported Features Work

The DST feature is automatically enabled for the modules listed below. You need not perform any action.

Analytics

All reports and dashboards automatically account for DST shifts, ensuring data accuracy. Time-sensitive metrics like engagement and conversions are correctly adjusted to reflect the local time, regardless of when a DST change occurred during the reporting period.

Campaigns (One-Time and Periodic)

Support applies only to one-time and periodic campaigns scheduled at a fixed time in a specific, named time zone (for example, "America/New_York"). MoEngage automatically adjusts the campaign's send time to match the local time in the selected timezone.

Example: You schedule a periodic campaign for every Monday at 9:00 AM in "America/Chicago." When DST begins, the platform automatically adjusts to send at 9:00 AM CDT. You do not need to manually change the send time.

Flows (Time-Triggered Entry)

DST support is enabled for the entry criteria of one-time and periodic Flows. When users are scheduled to enter a flow based on a time-triggered event, MoEngage automatically adjusts the entry time to accommodate DST.

Segmentation

Time-based filters used for segmentation are DST-aware. Filters that rely on time data (such as "last interacted at") automatically consider DST shifts, ensuring your segments remain accurate.

Manual Adjustments for Specific Scenarios

While MoEngage automates most DST adjustments, certain configurations require manual review, particularly when DST ends and clocks "fall back." Campaigns or Flows created before this transition may be affected.

Please review the following scenarios to ensure perfect delivery:

Campaigns Sent in "User's Timezone"

When a campaign targets users across multiple time zones (some observing DST, some not), schedules may shift. After DST ends, the campaign may be delivered one hour earlier than intended in DST-observing regions (for example, US, Canada), while delivery times in non-DST regions (for example, India) remain unchanged.

Example: A campaign scheduled for 10:00 AM will:

• Continue to run at 10:00 AM in India.
• Run at 9:00 AM in the US after DST ends.

Best Time to Send (BTS) Campaigns

MoEngage's BTS algorithm automatically adapts to new user engagement patterns within a week of a DST change. However, if you have configured a specific delivery window, you must manually adjust it.

Action Required: To maintain the same local time range after DST ends, shift the delivery window one hour earlier.

Example: If your delivery window is 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM, update it to 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM.

Time-Based "Wait Until" Steps in Flows

In regions impacted by DST, "Wait Until a specific time of day" nodes will trigger one hour later than scheduled after the "fall back" period ends.

Action Required: To ensure the step is executed at the intended local time, adjust the wait time to be one hour earlier.

Example: To have a user wait until 2:00 PM, set the node to 1:00 PM.

FAQs