I recently faced a big challenge working on countries timezone problem. I don't know the maganitute of the problem until I delved into it. Let me explain what the problem I faced looked liked.

There is an intake application for people all around the world. The current system has a robust explanation on users choosing a time in IST from any where they are to schedule an appointment. The problem is, users don't read the instruction so they pick the time in their local date and time. The problem is now, users miss the interview because the timezone where they are is different from the timezone of the Organisation.

When I started working on this application I came across so many issues but the biggest solution that help in a big way was curating a datase of countries with all their codes in ISO Alpha-2 and Alpha-3. Some libraries prefer Alpha-2 while some use Alpha-3. I also want the timezone to be handy so instead of displaying timezone for users to pick, I would display country and my application would figure out the timezone.

[Download]

[!FileDownload? &getFolder=`assets/docs` &getFile=`Countries-Timezone-Alpha-2-Alpha-3-Codes.zip`!] 

I decided to keep this here for anyone who would want to use it. At least, I have made the effort for you! Feel free to add to it and keep in comment for others or send to me and I would update the file. Hope this this helpful.