Convert the current time field to another time zone

May 13, 2022 09:02
Updated

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When you are using Current date & time function to extract the scraping time during Cloud Extraction, you may find the time zone of exported data is UTC+0 by default, which may be different from your local time.

Note: Timezone conversion is currently only applicable for data in date & time format such as "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM". You can use Reformat date & time to clean the data first : Refine extracted data (replace content, add a prefix, ..)

Time in the Date Preview when creating a task:

Time in the exported data of the same task using Cloud Extraction:

How to convert the time zone:

1. Click More beside the Current time field

2. Choose Clean Data

3. Click Add Step

4. Choose Timezone conversion

5. Choose your preferred time zone from the dropdown list

6. Check the Output field to see the converted time, and then Click Confirm if the converted time is the same as your preferred time

Timezone conversion can also kick in when you want to convert the scraped time data from your target website. For example, if you want to scrape the post date of a news article, you may want to convert the post time to your local time.

Note:

If the time data you scraped includes the timezone info, for example, 2022-2-15 05:40 +00:00, then Timezone conversion will convert the time based on the timezone info.
If the scraped data does not include the timezone, then Timezone conversion will convert the time based on your local time (the time showing on your computer).

However, sometimes the timezone of the time data you scraped may be different from your local time. For example, when you are viewing a foreign news website, the post time may be presented in UTC +9, while your local timezone is UTC+8. What if you want the scraped data to be presented in your timezone? We can easily add the timezone info as a suffix to the scraped data.

Giving an example

Default time data: 2022-2-15 05:40 (Suppose that you are in UTC +8 zone)

Scraped time data: 2022-2-15 06:40 (which is a UTC+9 time as the website suggests)

You preferred output data: 2022-2-15 05:40

Steps to achieve that goal:

Click of your data field and choose Clean Data
Click Add Step, choose Add a suffix
Enter +09:00 (which means UTC+9) in the text box, click Confirm
Click Add step again and choose Timezone conversion
Choose your preferred timezone, check out the Output time, click Confirm

If you need any help with task configuration or data collection, submit a ticket to our support team! We'll get back to you soon.

Author: Kisad

Editor: Yina

How to convert the time zone:

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