From 1 November 2026, some parts of Canada are no longer changing their clocks, so patients residing in those areas may need a new time zone in Cliniko.
This article is specifically for updating your patients' time zone settings. To update your account or business location time zones, please refer to our Adjusting your account to permanent daylight time guide.
What's changing
Several Canadian regions are moving to a permanent time, and Cliniko has added new time zone options to match. Most of western and central Canada is affected, including British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and parts of northwestern Ontario.
Saskatchewan, Yukon, and north-western British Columbia already stay on the same time all year, so nothing changes there. Nunavut isn't changing either, and continues to change its clocks.
If you're not sure whether your patients' area is affected, check with them before you make any changes.
Who needs to update their time zone
Only patients who live in an affected part of Canada need a new time zone. When you update a patient's time zone, Cliniko doesn't move any of their appointments. Only the time shown to the patient changes.
This matters most if your business isn't in one of the affected areas. For example, your clinic is in Australia and you have a patient in Vancouver. After you update the patient to Pacific Time (Canada), the time shown in their confirmations and reminders for appointments from 1 November changes by one hour, but the appointment stays where it is in your calendar.
Because this is a new change, update your patients' time zones first, then contact them to confirm their upcoming appointments. Make sure you and each patient both know when the appointment will take place, as the time in their confirmations and reminders may now look different from what they expect.
If you and the patient agree on the time, you don’t need to change anything.
If you don’t agree, reschedule the appointment to a time that suits you both, and let the patient know about the change.
Do this as soon as you can after updating each patient, so there’s time to sort out any differences before the appointment.
Choose the right time zone
Use this table to match a patient's current time zone to the new one. If you're updating patients through a data import, be sure to use the correct time zone name (from the fourth column in the table below) within your spreadsheet so Cliniko can automatically apply that time zone to your import.
Current time zone in Cliniko | New time zone in Cliniko | Current name in a patient export | New name to use in an import |
Pacific Time (US & Canada) | Pacific Time (Canada) | America/Los_Angeles | America/Vancouver |
Mountain Time (US & Canada) | Alberta | America/Denver | America/Edmonton |
Central Time (US & Canada) | Manitoba | America/Chicago | America/Winnipeg |
Update one patient
Open the patient's details.
In Contact information, open the Time zone drop-down and select the new time zone.
Select Save patient.
Update many patients at once
If you have a lot of patients to update, you can use a data import to change their time zones in bulk. You'll need to be an account administrator to do this.
Go to Settings → Data & docs → Data exports and export your patients as a Spreadsheet (.csv). Make a copy of the file and edit the copy, so you still have the original.
In the copy, find the Time Zone column (column L). Time zones appear as names like America/Denver, as shown in the third column of the table above:
For each affected patient, replace each of their time zone with the matching name from the fourth column of the table, such as America/Edmonton. Enter it exactly as it's written in the table:
Delete the columns and rows you don't need to update. Keep the Patient ID column and the Time Zone column. You can also keep first and last names to help you recognise each patient. Save the file.
Go to Settings → Data & docs → Data imports, select Patients and select Import.
Select your CSV file and select Next - Match information.
Select Update existing patients. Cliniko will detect the Patient ID column. Check that the correct column is selected.
In the Enable column, tick only the Time Zone field. Fields you leave unticked are ignored.
Select Next - Import and finish. Your import starts straight away.
Updates made through a data import are permanent, and deleting the import doesn't undo them. If something goes wrong, you can re-import your original file to restore the previous time zones.
If something doesn't import
If any part of your file can't be imported, Cliniko creates a "failed" spreadsheet that lists what failed and why. To find it, go to Settings → Data & docs → Data imports and look for the pink link in the Status column, which shows how many records failed. Download the spreadsheet, use it to correct the problems, then import the corrected file. A common cause is a time zone name that doesn't match the names in the table above, so check the spelling.
For more on how bulk updates work, see Updating existing records via data imports.
If you're not sure which time zone is right for a patient, or an import doesn't go as expected, get in touch with our support team and we'll help you sort it out. 💬