How to set regional/time zone settings in SharePoint

Regional settings can be set in SharePoint in three different places:

1. The Web application
2. The Site/Web level
3. User settings

With the exception of the User settings, you’ll need to be logged in as a site collection administrator or a site owner to change the regional settings for a site. With this in mind, let’s dive on in…

Changing regional settings in your Web Application

This will change permissions at the top level – all new sites created within the application will take these regional settings by default, unless changed at the site level. Note that these changes will only affect new sites created within your application, as it will not propagate to existing sub sites. This is because sub sites receive their regional settings that are configured on the parent site only when the sub site is created.

Starting in SharePoint Central Admin, click on Application Management -> Manage web applications:

Here you’ll find a list of all your SharePoint applications – go ahead and select the one that you want to change the settings for:

Click on General Settings:

And then click on General Settings again,

…and adjust your time zone as needed.

Setting regional settings at the Site level

As noted above, your site will by default inherit its regional settings from the parent site, or from your application if it’s a top level site. These settings will be used as the default regional settings for all users of your site, unless the user chooses to change their default regional settings.

When logged in to your homepage, click on Site Actions -> Site Settings:

Once in your Site Settings, click on Regional settings:

Adjust your settings as needed, and then click OK to save your changes.

Setting regional settings on a per-user basis

Individual users can either use the default regional settings that are set on a specific site or set their own regional settings. This ability makes it easier for users who are in different countries or regions to collaborate on documents that are in the same SharePoint site, regardless of what region the user is working from.

From anywhere on the site, click on your username, and then select My Settings:

And then click on My Regional Settings:

**Note that you will be unable to change any of your regional settings unless you uncheck the option to “Always follow web settings”

 

Once you uncheck that option, go ahead and adjust as needed.

The following table describes the regional settings that are available for all sites and shows which settings can be configured by site owners and which ones can be configured by individual users.