Yealink T4X phones in UTC+2 (SAST, CAT) timezone

[ghalse]

Version 80503 of the Yealink T4X template brought in a bunch of useful changes that largely removed any requirement to customise templates. However, the template does not support vast swathes of Africa who use Central Africa Time (CAT, UTC+2) or South African Standard Time (SAST, also UTC+2). While legally distinct for historical reasons, both CAT and SAST are effectively the same timezone following the same daylight savings rules and are thus typically represented in e.g Windows as "Harare, Pretoria". Lack of timezone support is now the only reason I customise templates :-(

Both the Yealkink T42G and T46G have support for "Harare,Pretoria" as a timezone in firmware 29.83.0.55 / 28.83.0.55 (as supported by 15.5U1), and I presume other Yealink T4X models do too. This means the underlying phone has support for the right timezone, and it is merely a templating issue.

I notice that both East African and West African timezones are now supported by 3CX, so I can only assume leaving out Central Africa is an oversight. Fixing it is a fairly trivial change:

--- yealinkT4x.ph.xml   2019-06-12 15:41:10.528014600 +0200
+++ yealinkT4x-utc2.ph.xml      2019-06-12 15:46:08.059757400 +0200
@@ -497,6 +497,9 @@
       <option value="+2" displaytext="GMT+2 Greece(Athens)" id="70" zone="2:00">
         <item name="TimeZoneName">Greece(Athens)</item>
       </option>
+      <option value="+2" displaytext="GMT+2 Central Africa Time (Harare,Pretoria)" id="120" zone="2:00">
+        <item name="TimeZoneName">Harare,Pretoria</item>
+      </option>
       <option value="+2" displaytext="GMT+2 Israel(Tel Aviv)" id="71" zone="2:00">
         <item name="TimeZoneName">Israel(Tel Aviv)</item>
       </option>

Since I notice other posts on this topic has had responses from 3CX, can I ask that you consider adding proper support for Central Africa Time into this template?

 

[3C Technology]

Hello Ghalse also South African here my way around this issue is to use Russia kaliningrad they are also +2 hours with out daylight saving time so essentially the same as here.This can be set as the default time on the 3cx or in the provisioning tab on the extension.

Time Zone
EET (Eastern European Time)
UTC/GMT +2 hours
No DST
No Daylight Saving Time in 2019
Difference
Same time as
Durban

 

[ghalse]

That works until they change their DST rules again. Using the wrong timezone always comes with the risk of future complications. It is also completely non-obvious to people in Africa which of the multitude of other timezones might work for now. My point is Yealink have now fixed the underlying problem in their firmware; it would be nice if we didn't need workarounds in 3CX.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi @ghalse

This has been addressed in V16

      <option value="+2" displaytext="GMT+2 Central Africa Time (no DST)" id="65" zone="2:00">
        <item name="TimeZoneName">Harare,Pretoria</item>