# Why stringified datetime values still have timezone issues **URL:** \ **Category:** Ask for Help\ **Created:** [May 20, 2026, 8:27pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/why-stringified-datetime-values-still-have-timezone-issues/87132 "2026-05-20T20:27:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2026, 9:06pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/why-stringified-datetime-values-still-have-timezone-issues/87132/2 "2026-05-20T21:06:53Z")
Your date is most likely being stored in UTC time and converted to EDT when you view it. The server only sees UTC time, and thus the template column is “locking in” at UTC time, and applying a 4 hour difference, but I’m the wrong direction. To be honest, I think Glide handles dates and times very poorly. It’s definitely a timezone issue because you are -4 hours from UTC time. Glides handling of time is weird in that they can both completely ignore the zulu (UTC) timezone indicator in an ISO date, while also allowing conversion to and from zulu time without explicitly specifying a timezone. It’s hard to understand what they are doing and they have never explained the logic behind it very well, or at all. Their handling of date logic has been flawed from day one in my opinion. I would guess it’s a side affect of them trying to interpret external string based dates as actual dates, which can be difficult when data is coming from a google sheet for example, but in my opinion they could definitely handle it better, especially if they are storing the UTC ISO underneath. Since you are using a server side workflow, it’s either trying to unnecessarily apply all of this extra timezone conversion logic or just doing it in the wrong direction. Maybe you can get away with applying a timezone offset to your date column to account for that, or maybe you have to double the timezone offset value first. Not sure, but there definitely needs to be some workaround manipulation to get it to work correctly at the moment. There needs to be a lot more control of that logic from our end instead of them trying to incorrectly figure it out for us. > [@How to convert a text column into a real date that Glide recognizes as date column?](https://community.glideapps.com/t/how-to-convert-a-text-column-into-a-real-date-that-glide-recognizes-as-date-column/86929/6): > > Yeah that’s tricky, especially since you are giving it a moving target by not having a date and time in a consistent timezone. Text to Date is not something I’ve ever needed to use. I think the Text to Date column assumes you are giving it a local time and is trying to give you GMT time as a result based on your local timezone, unless you specify a timezone which adjusts it from that GMT time. When you don’t have a Z at the end of your date and time, I think it’s applying the local offset twi… --- _[View the full topic](https://community.glideapps.com/t/why-stringified-datetime-values-still-have-timezone-issues/87132)._