Webchat not populating localTimestamp and localTimezone properties

[Kaiqb]

Describe the bug

Customer wants to know the following which we do not have an answer for:

I would like to know the reason why localTimezone and localTimestamp in Activity (Microsoft.Bot.Schema.Activity) are always empty when running as App Service. When we run on emulator on our local Mac machine, it always has a valid timestamp and timezone

Steps to reproduce

Confirmed that localTimestamp is not populated from webchat when bot is published in Azure. I am not sure how customer is accessing localTimezone property as the IMessageActivity interface that we use does not implement that property but the generic Activity does have a localTimezone property.

Additional context

[Bug]

[Kaiqb]

From Eric:
I’m not sure how to redirect this. I looked into it a little, and looks like we are not setting localTimestamp or localTimezone from webchat or directlinejs:

LocalTimestamp field is empty:
microsoft/BotFramework-DirectLineJS#248

Emulator is setting localTimestamp here:
https://github.com/microsoft/BotFramework-Emulator/blob/main/packages/app/main/src/server/state/conversation.ts#L534

Should we re-open this DL-JS issue, or do you have a different recommendation for this?

[corinagum]

Clarification: does this mean that the timestamp is not showing in the Web Chat UI on the 'Test in Web Chat' panel on ABS? Or is this in regards to the activity data?

If it's the latter, I think reopening the DLJS issue is the right call. If it's a UI issue, I can look into it further if we can get more repro information.

[EricDahlvang]

@corinagum it is the latter (when the activity arrives at the bot, these fields are not populated)

[corinagum]

This is not just DLJS but would need to be added to any chat adapter.

[compulim]

When working on this, please also fix #2588.

[compulim]

Working on this now.

Activity spec:

Property	Type	Description
localTimestamp	string	Date and time that the message was sent in the local time zone, expressed in ISO-8601 format.
localTimezone	string	Contains the name of the local timezone of the message, expressed in IANA Time Zone database format. For example, America/Los_Angeles.

localTimestamp

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17415579/how-to-iso-8601-format-a-date-with-timezone-offset-in-javascript

Also work for locations with time zones that are not a full hour, such as: India (+05:30), Eucla (+08:45), Chatham Islands of New Zealand (+13:45), etc.

localTimezone

To get the local time zone IANA name

new Intl.DateTimeFormat().resolvedOptions().timeZone

However, this does not work in IE11:

• InPrivate mode: window.Intl object is undefined
• Normal: timeZone property is not supported, will return undefined

Since hour offset is not a 1:1 translation to IANA time zone names, i.e. GMT-08:00 cannot be translated to America/Los_Angeles. We will return undefined for environments where Intl or timeZone returns undefined.

[compulim]

Even though Web Chat send out an activity to ABS with localTimestamp. The bot developer will need to retrieve them using rawLocalTimestamp.

Activity received on the bot side, after Web Chat sent out an activity with time zone of Japan. See highlighted.

Original activity from Web Chat

(Capture from network trace)

  {
    "channelData": {
      "clientActivityID": "1621475335684ql44o56fi4",
      "clientTimestamp": "2021-05-20T01:48:55.684Z"
    },
    "text": "dump-activity",
    "textFormat": "plain",
    "type": "message",
    "channelId": "webchat",
    "from": {
      "id": "dl_3fc4640be134b83b9b3f71c853ffba4a",
      "name": "",
      "role": "user"
    },
    "locale": "en-US",
+   "localTimestamp": "2021-05-20T10:48:55.684+09:00",
+   "localTimezone": "Asia/Tokyo",
    "timestamp": "2021-05-20T01:48:55.684Z",
    "entities": [
      {
        "requiresBotState": true,
        "supportsListening": true,
        "supportsTts": true,
        "type": "ClientCapabilities"
      }
    ]
  }

Perceived activity on bot side

  {
    "type": "message",
    "id": "IXiRn3wwW8lI2WShb0KaXA-o|0000000",
    "timestamp": "2021-05-20T01:48:55.506Z",
+   "localTimestamp": "2021-05-20T01:48:55.684Z",
+   "localTimezone": "Asia/Tokyo",
    "serviceUrl": "https://directline.botframework.com/",
    "channelId": "directline",
    "from": {
      "id": "dl_3fc4640be134b83b9b3f71c853ffba4a",
      "name": ""
    },
    "conversation": {
      "id": "IXiRn3wwW8lI2WShb0KaXA-o"
    },
    "recipient": {
      "id": "webchat-mockbot@WYDIyKwAZCw",
      "name": "webchat-mockbot"
    },
    "textFormat": "plain",
    "locale": "en-US",
    "text": "dump-activity",
    "entities": [
      {
        "type": "ClientCapabilities",
        "requiresBotState": true,
        "supportsListening": true,
        "supportsTts": true
      }
    ],
    "channelData": {
      "clientActivityID": "1621475335684ql44o56fi4",
      "clientTimestamp": "2021-05-20T01:48:55.684Z"
    },
    "rawTimestamp": "2021-05-20T01:48:55.5067653Z",
+   "rawLocalTimestamp": "2021-05-20T10:48:55.684+09:00",
    "callerId": "urn:botframework:azure"
  }

[HiroClubLabs]

Thank you. What do we need to upgrade to take an advantage of the localtimestamp feature? Thanks, Hiro Sent with BlackBerry Work (www.blackberry.com) From: William Wong ***@***.******@***.***>> Date: Wednesday, May 19, 2021, 6:33 PM To: microsoft/BotFramework-WebChat ***@***.******@***.***>> Cc: Yamaguchi.Hiro ***@***.******@***.***>>, Manual ***@***.******@***.***>> Subject: Re: [microsoft/BotFramework-WebChat] Webchat not populating localTimestamp and localTimezone properties (#3788) ATTENTION: This e-mail came from an external source. Do not open attachments or click on links from unknown or unexpected emails. Even though Web Chat send out an activity to ABS with localTimestamp. The bot developer will need to retrieve them using rawLocalTimestamp. Activity received on the bot side, after Web Chat sent out an activity with time zone of Japan. { "type": "message", "id": "3HIorx83j1xAJSLl4II4sK-o|0000000", "timestamp": "2021-05-20T01:23:50.933Z", "localTimestamp": "2021-05-20T01:23:51.000Z", "localTimezone": "Asia/Tokyo", "serviceUrl": "https://directline.botframework.com/", "channelId": "directline", "from": { "id": "dl_2793ad24dffe05f3fdf13cc683dd69ba", "name": "" }, "conversation": { "id": "3HIorx83j1xAJSLl4II4sK-o" }, "recipient": { "id": "webchat-mockbot@WYDIyKwAZCw", "name": "webchat-mockbot" }, "textFormat": "plain", "locale": "en-US", "text": "dump-activity", "entities": [ { "type": "ClientCapabilities", "requiresBotState": true, "supportsListening": true, "supportsTts": true } ], "channelData": { "clientActivityID": "1621473831109mux9a3motu", "clientTimestamp": "2021-05-20T01:23:51.109Z" }, "rawTimestamp": "2021-05-20T01:23:50.9334271Z", "rawLocalTimestamp": "2021-05-20T10:23:51+09:00", "callerId": "urn:botframework:azure" } - You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#3788 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJ74QU6LJUGUPPGT4PTBUJ3TORRCRANCNFSM4Y6SUGFA>.