Did anyone restrict users changing their timezones?

Question

I want to know if there is an easy way to restrict users from changing their Timezone. I wrote a trigger to do it for now, but I was wondering why Salesforce didnt allow us to write a Validation Rule on User's Timezone field. Any other ideas or ways please do let me know.

Thank you

Answer 1

Trigger approach seems to be the best to restrict the users from changing their timezones.

 trigger UsertimezoneRestriction on User (before update) {
Profile p = [Select Id, Name from Profile where Name = 'Tier 1 Agent'];

for(User u : Trigger.new){
    if(u.ProfileId == p.Id && u.TimezoneSidKey != 'America/New_York'){
        u.addError('Cannot change the timezone');
    }
}

}

Answer 2

If you install ObjectMetadataSnapshot, a freebie from Force.com Labs, you can create a validation rule on Time Zone that looks something like this:

$ObjectType.z_MetaDumpSetting__c.Fields.LastModifiedDate  <>  $Profile.LastModifiedDate

The above would restrict users from changing their time zone while allowing other fields to still be modified. I just verified the above in my Dev Org.

z_MetaDumpSetting__c represents the metadata value for the particular field, in this case, TimeZone. You'll see it in the drop-down when building the Work Rule as I did when I created the Rule before posting it here.

Description of ObjectMetadataSnapshot:

This 100% native Force App extracts object & field metadata information from your org and stores them as custom objects in same org. Once you complete to store metadata in custom objects, you can use Salesforce report to analyze DB schema or Salesforce Analytic Snapshots to manage DB schema version.