Specifcally now() is calculating as the data source time and in the analysis it is calculating as UTC. Is this expected behavior?
if you are importing the data into SPICE, then yes. In the analysis it will be using UTC if the dataset is using SPICE. If dataset is not using SPICE, now() would be pushed to the underlying datasource and hence would give the result according to the default timezone of the datasource - this is also what happens when editing datasets.
That is not currently happening though. I have a SPICE dataset that is calculating now() as PT when used in the edit data source and as UTC when used in Analyses.
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=318896
Amazon QuickSight uses UTC time for querying, filtering, and displaying date data. When date data doesn’t specify a time zone, Amazon QuickSight assumes UTC values. When date data does specify a time zone, Amazon QuickSight converts it to display in UTC time. For example, a date field with a time zone offset like 2015-11-01T03:00:00-08:00 is converted to UTC and displayed in Amazon QuickSight as 2015-11-01T15:30:00.