What Timezone Data Formats Are Supported By ContactMonkey?

Understanding Timezone Sending Data Formats

ContactMonkey allows you to send emails to your employees at the optimal time, regardless of their location, by leveraging timezone data from your HRIS. To ensure accurate delivery, the timezone information provided by your HRIS must adhere to one of our supported formats.

We currently support the following data formats for timezone sending:

1. IANA Time Zone Database Format (Recommended)

The IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) Time Zone Database (also known as the tz database or zone info database) is the most precise and widely accepted standard for representing timezones globally.

2. GeoNames

GeoNames is a comprehensive geographical database that aggregates data from various sources to provide information about places worldwide, including their timezones.

Examples:

• geoname_id= 5128581 for New York City, USA
• country_name= United States
• country_code= US
• city_name= New York City
• subdivision_1_iso_code = US-NY-MN
• subdivision_2_iso_code= US-NY

3. Postal Code/Zip Code

ContactMonkey can also infer the timezone based on the postal code (or zip code) provided by your HRIS, supporting various formats from across the world.

Examples:

• For New York, USA: 10001
• For London, UK: SW1A 0AA
• For Toronto, Canada: M5V 2H1
• For Sydney, Australia: 2000
• For Tokyo, Japan: 197 0001

4. Country

ContactMonkey will accept any common formatting of country names, including short and long ISO names, Alpha-2 code, and Alpha-3 code country code names.

Examples:

Preparing Your HRIS Data for Timezone Sending

When exporting data from your HRIS for ContactMonkey, ensure that the column containing timezone information is clearly identified and consistently formatted using one of the methods outlined above (IANA Time Zone, GeoName, Country, or Postal Code).

To ensure successful data import, header names for the respective information must be strictly as follows:

• Time Zone
• Postal Code
• Country
• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

The system will not recognize any variations of these header names, such as Home Country or zipCode. Adhering to these exact header names is critical for the system to correctly map your data.

If you have any questions about formatting your HRIS data for time zone sending, please don't hesitate to contact our support team for assistance.

Setting Timezone For Azure AD Users

If your user data is managed in Azure AD, you can store timezone information using custom extension attributes. This allows ContactMonkey to synchronize and apply timezone sending based on your users' locations.

Here's how to set a timezone extension attribute for each user through the Exchange Admin Center:

1. Open https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com.
2. Under the sidebar's Recipients, click Mailboxes.
3. Double-click on any user from the list.
4. Click on the Others tab.
5. Click on Custom attributes.
   • You will see up to 15 custom attribute input fields.
   • This is the maximum number of allowed custom attributes per user.
6. Choose an input number (e.g., 01) for users' timezone.
7. Enter an IANA timezone (e.g., America/Toronto) into the chosen input field and click Save.
   • Repeat this step for each user to set their timezone.
   • Note: You must use the same input number for all users for consistency.
8. Now, following ContactMonkey's Azure AD Sync Guide, map ContactMonkey's Time Zone field to Azure's extensionAttribute01 (or extensionAttributeX where X is the input number you chose for timezones).

Once these steps are completed and your Azure AD sync is configured, imported contacts in ContactMonkey will now correctly have a time zone assigned for optimal sending.