When needing to capture temporal data, use our Date/Time field.
As the name implies, this Form field allows you to collect dates, times and date + time values.
As with most Form fields, the Date/Time field type has a set of common properties you can configure to control the field’s behaviour and look.
We provide extensive information on each individual property in the Form designer itself – just click the little “?” buttons to see detailed hints.
Below, we have highlighted some of the key aspects of the Date/Time field type.
Date/Time Type Overview
This allows you to specify whether the field should capture dates only, times only, or a combination of date and time values.
The choice is simple enough – consider what value you need for your scenario.
However, you should be mindful of the timezone implications of these options.
Date and time values are easy to understand, but they become tricky when users work in multiple time zones.
Depending on the option you choose, our platform will store values in either the local device timezone or the UTC/GMT timezone:
- Date Only stores values in the local device timezone
- Time Only stores values in the local device’s timezone
- Date & Time stores values in the UTC timezone
Time Intervals
The minute intervals that the time selection field will display to the user.
e.g. if you select 15 minutes, then the user will only be able to choose from minute values of 0, 15, 30, 45.
On the app and platform side, our system automatically displays all Date & Time values according to the logged-in user’s timezone.
Users should see the Date and time values adjusted for their timezone in the Data area of the secure website.
As such you don’t need to worry too much about which option you choose, since the platform will take care of displaying the answer values in the appropriate timezone. We also provide an option in the Organization Setup page which lets you specify that the user-specific timezone be used when working with Date & Time values in template generation and general data export cases.
Working with Date & Time values in formulas and Data Sources
When working with Date/Time field answers in formula scenarios – e.g., Dynamic Value, Visibility, Data Source binding – you should be mindful of the above timezone implications of your Date/Time Type decision for the field in question.
You can convert date & time values between local and UTC time zones using the DATETOLOCAL() and DATETOUTC() formula functions.
If you are inserting/updating rows in a Data Source with Date & Time values from a Form (see our “Bind to Data Source” Form Recipe on how to do this), then you will see that the values in the bound Data Source column are in UTC timezone.
This is consistent with our platform policy of storing Date & Time values as UTC timezone, and ensures your Data Source will work correctly when bound to Date & Time fields.
How to get Date & Time values stored in your local timezone
If you want to have a Form that needs to capture a date & time value in your local timezone, then you should either:
- Use separate Date only and Time only fields instead of one Date & Time field.
Remember, with Date/Time only fields, we store the values in the device’s local timezone.
You can always combine these values as desired when utilising these answers in templates or connectors.OR - Use a single Date & Time field, but add a Hidden field that stores the equivalent value of the local date & time.
This is done using the DATETOLOCAL() formula function in the Hidden field’s Dynamic Value property.
Remember that Hidden fields store values in textual format, so if you want to use this Hidden field in a date formula – e.g., DATEDIFF() – then you need to convert the Hidden field back into a Date & Time value via the DATE() formula function.