Issues with Time Property When Exporting and Importing Data

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The time property difference between your exported and imported data is likely due to timezone differences between your projects. This is a common issue when migrating data between Mixpanel projects.For projects created before January 1, 2023, Mixpanel converts event timestamps to your project timezone before storing the data. This means that event timestamps are stored based on the project timezone setting at the time of ingestion. When you export this data and import it to another project with a different timezone setting, the timestamps will appear different.Here's why this happens and how to fix it: 1. Timezone conversion needed: When exporting raw event data, the timestamps are in the timezone of your original project. Before importing into your new project, you need to convert those timestamps to UTC so they're correctly transformed to the timezone of the new project. Managing Projects2. Specify timezone offset when importing: When using import tools like Mixpanel Utils, you must specify a timezone offset parameter to ensure proper time conversion: LBKSmputils.import_events('event_export.txt', timezone_offset=-8)LBKSThis example shows importing with a -8 timezone offset (PST), which is necessary if your data was exported from a project in Pacific time. Mixpanel Utils3. Project creation date matters: For projects created before January 1, 2023, the from_date and to_date parameters in the Export API are interpreted using your project's current timezone setting, while newer projects use UTC. Managing TimezonesWhen migrating projects, it's recommended to compare the timezones from your existing projects to the new project to determine any timezone offsets that are necessary before running transformations. Project MigrationTo ensure proper time handling in future implementations, always send date properties to Mixpanel in UTC format.

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