Setting up Daylight Saving
in Protege

If you’re in one of these regions, it’s important that you ensure your clients Protege WX or GX systems are set to automatically change. This is particularly important for systems with time servers as the time is always given in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which doesn’t have a time zone and so isn’t subject to daylight saving rules.

If your clients’ systems aren’t set up with a daylight saving rule, the controller’s clock will be wrong, resulting in inaccurate schedules and records of events.

Suzie’s Cafe

Let’s take a minute to walk through that scenario with the help of Suzie. Suzie runs an independent and busy café in the center of the city, which is open from 7:00am-4:00pm. It’s the perfect place to grab your morning fix on the way to the office. Suzie uses Protege WX to keep her café secure. Since she can’t be there every day, she uses the systems automatic controls so that at 6:00am the lights turn on and her staff can unlock the door and disarm the building using the keypad.

Except daylight saving is approaching and Suzie’s system hasn’t been configured to automatically update. That means when the clocks move backwards and her staff arrive for work at 6:00am to begin the days prep, the system will still think it’s 5:00am. As a result, Suzie’s staff won’t be able to access the building for another hour, when the café is meant to be opening. This can cause unnecessary headaches for Suzie and her staff and frustration for her early-morning regulars,  resulting in lost revenue at her busiest time of day, along with trust in her as a dependable cafe.

How to Set Daylight Savings in Protege

So, how do we stop this from happening? While the installer will typically be the one to set this up, depending on how Suzie’s integrator has programmed the system, she could program it herself by following some very simple steps. Let’s go over how we would explain this to her.

Configuring Daylight Saving in Protege GX and WX:

Both Protege WX and Protege GX allow you to create a rule that enables the controller to update the time automatically. This is essential for systems that use time servers, as they follow UTC.

To create this rule in Protege WX, navigate to the Scheduling menu, then to the Daylight Savings Menu.

For Protege GX, head to the Programming menu, then to the Daylight Savings Menu.

You will see options for months and days that need to be filled in:

• The Start Month is the month when daylight saving begins
• The Start Day is the day that daylight saving begins and is based on the day of the week, such as the second Sunday of the month
• The End Month is the month that daylight saving ends
• The End Day is the day of the week that the clocks will roll back, such as the last Sunday of the month
• *In Protege GX, by default this change will only apply to a single controller. By selecting “apply to all controllers”, your changes will be made to all controllers on the site.
• Save the record to complete it, and you’re all set! The system will automatically change with daylight saving

For more information on how to set up daylight saving in Protege, please see the Protege WX Programming Reference Manual or the Protege GX Operator Reference Manual which you can download from the My ICT portal.  To view the manuals, you will need to have a valid website account.

Conclusion

Creating rules so your clients Protege systems automatically adjust with daylight saving is easy and saves everyone a headache in the future. With your help, Suzie’s system is set to automatically change, meaning that’s one less thing she needs to remember, and you won’t get a call asking why she wasn’t told about this.

Originally posted March 2022, updated September 2022.