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How do datetime fields work in Odoo?

technical quickstart Technical Quickstart

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Abraham Ismael Torales Salazar (aits)

I want to know how Odoo manages the different timezones and date format for the Backend and PDFs

Version: 19

Abraham Ismael Torales Salazar (aits)

Author Best Answer

Backend

Datetime fields shown in the backend consider the timezone set in your device (ex. the computer you are working on).

Timezone in Computer	Backend field
Mexico City, Mexico
Tokyo, Japan

The date and time format is taken from the user language:

Language	Setting
Spanish (Latin America) / Español (América Latina)
English (US)

💡

Odoo saves the datetime field value in UTC time, but when you see it in Odoo, the time is "converted" based on your device timezone and with the user language format.

When using filters, you should put your specific time, and Odoo will look for the field raw value (in UTC).

You can also do some other configurations using Studio, like showing the month in numbers or name, or choosing whether or not to show hours or seconds.

PDF

When we add a datetime field to a PDF Report using the "/" command, the time shown considers the user timezone when downloading the PDF.

The date and time format is taken from the user language

💡

This means that you may have a timezone set in your computer, and another in your user, and you may see different times between the backend and the PDF. For the PDF, the computer timezone doesn't matter, only for the backend.

This also gives us the possibility of changing the user's timezone and/or language to match the one from the person we want to send this PDF to.

Examples:

User Language	User Time zone	Result in the PDF Report
Spanish (Latin America) / Español (América Latina)	Mexico City, Mexico
Spanish (Latin America) / Español (América Latina)	Tokyo, Japan
English (US)	Tokyo, Japan
English (US)	Mexico City, Mexico

PDF (Advanced)

If you edit the source code of the PDF Report, you will see that the field was added with a t-field.

In case we use t-out/t-esc instead of t-field, the PDF will show the time in UTC, ignoring any language format we talked about earlier.

If you want to format the datetime, you could do it as follows:

For showing only date using t-field or t-out:

<span t-field="doc.x_studio_datetime" t-options="{'widget': 'date'}"/>

For custom date and time format using t-out or t-esc:

<span t-out="doc.x_studio_datetime.strftime('%d/%b/%Y %I:%M %p')"/>

Date components

Time components

Code	Meaning
%Y	Year (4 digits)
%y	Year (2 digits)
%m	Month (zero-padded)
%B	Month name
%b	Abbreviated month name
%d	Day of month (zero-padded)
%e	Day of month (space-padded) (Unix only)
%j	Day of year

Code	Meaning
%H	Hour (24-hour)
%I	Hour (12-hour)
%p	AM / PM
%M	Minute
%S	Second
%f	Microseconds

Week / Weekday

Quick preset

Code	Meaning
%A	Weekday name
%a	Abbreviated weekday
%w	Weekday number (0=Sunday)
%u	Weekday number (1=Monday)
%U	Week number (Sunday first)
%W	Week number (Monday first)

Code	Meaning
%x	Locale date
%X	Locale time
%c	Locale date & time

💡

For standard reports, user timezone still applies, but language format may be linked to partner_id in the QWeb Code in t-lang attribute.

<t t-call="sale.report_saleorder_document" t-lang="doc.partner_id.lang"/>

⚠️

Be careful when editing the PDF code. Incorrect modifications may cause errors when generating or downloading the PDF. For best practices and detailed guidance, please refer to your Odoo Advisor.

Artificial Intelligence

For AI fields, if you add a prompt specifying a certain hour/time, it will be set in UTC. But when you see it in the backend, it will be shown in your device timezone. Example:

Prompt	Result in Odoo Backend for Mexico City timezone

You could also take other datetime fields for the AI prompt

Prompt	Result in Odoo Backend

Email templates

When adding a datetime field to an email template, it will be added (and we can edit it from the template code) with a format_datetime function.

Here, we could set the timezone, language code, and specific datetime format.

Contacts timezone

By default, contacts are generated with the timezone of the user that creates it.

You can see the timezone for each contact by showing the field using Studio.

Moreover, you can also add the field that shows the difference between UTC and the selected timezone for that contact.

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