Hello All,

Just want to share my experience in creating Visualforce Email template where you want to display date and time in User timezone

***Overview
You are in MST time zone.
Let's say we have Date/Time field TaskDateTime__c and use it in Visualforce email template to show recipient the time in email.

<apex:outputText value="{0,date,EEEE, MMMM d, yyyy, HH:mm:ss}"><apex:param value="{!RelatedTo.TaskDateTime__c}" /></apex:outputText>

In email time will be converted and showed to GMT instead of EST.

The outputField (which convert time to user locale automatically) does not
work in Visualforce Email templates (not supported).

So how do I tell to display in Visualforce Email template time in User
timezone? For example MST?

***Implementation Details (worarounds)***

I found two workarounds:

Workaround 1: Use Controller class for the Component to use in template

In order to format the date in various TimeZone in Email Template, we can follow the steps:

1. First create a Controller class for the Component

Setup|App Setup|Develop|Apex Classes|New

Formatted_DateTime_Controller Class Code
----------------------------------------------------------

public class controller_formatted_datetime
{
public DateTime date_time { get; set; } //property that reads the datetime value from component attribute tag
public String defined_format { get; set;} //property that reads the string value from component attribute tag
public String getFormattedDatetime()
{
if (date_time == null) {return ''; }
else { if (defined_format == null) {
return date_time.format(); //return the full date/time in user's locale and time zone
}
else { return date_time.format(defined_format,'MST'); //Specify Time zone like IST,CST
}}}}

2. Create a Component

Setup|App Setup|Develop|Components

VF Component Code (Name: VFEmailTempComp)

<apex:component access="global" controller="controller_formatted_datetime">{!FormattedDatetime}
<apex:attribute assignTo="{!date_time}" description="The DateTime value to be rendered" name="date_time_value" type="DateTime"></apex:attribute>
<apex:attribute assignTo="{!defined_format}" description="The optional format to use for the DateTime value to be rendered" name="date_time_format" type="String"></apex:attribute>
</apex:component>

3. Create an Email Template and embed the component.

Setup|Administration Setup|Communication Templates|Email Templates

Email Template Code
---------------------------------

<messaging:emailTemplate subject="Testing DateTime Format" recipientType="Contact" >
<messaging:plainTextEmailBody >
Formatted: <c:VFEmailTempComp date_time_value="{!NOW()}" date_time_format="EEE MMM d kk:mm:ss z yyyy" />
</messaging:plainTextEmailBody>
</messaging:emailTemplate>

It will display current time in MST timezone.

Workaround 2: Calculate difference in the apex:param value (for MST (-7) it will be 7/24=0.291666666

Date: <apex:outputText value="{0,date,EEEE, MMMM d, yyyy}"><apex:param value="{!RelatedTo.Scheduled_Clock_In__c - 0.291666666}" /></apex:outputText>
Time: <apex:outputText value="{0,date,h:ma}"><apex:param value="{!RelatedTo.Scheduled_Clock_In__c - 0.291666666}" /></apex:outputText> MST