topic Re: Formatting date in Survey123 in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Formatting date in Survey123

bobwright — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 20:48:26 GMT

Greetings. I've read Ismael's post regarding this, but it doesn't address the specific question I have. I understand that using the type "date" results in 10/5/16 12:00, but I would really like it to be 2016/10/05 12:00 so I can sort properly on them (10/21/16 sorts before 10/5/16 for example). The type "datetime" results in 16/5/10 which doesn't help much either. Changing the date format in the Regional settings of Windows does not help any. Suggestions? Thanks.

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

IsmaelChivite — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 05:23:39 GMT

Would you be willing to store the date in a separate question, for example using a Calculate type of question?

That is: you would keep your Date type of question (would be stored as an esriFieldTypeDate) and add an additional question of type calculate which would be stored as an esriFieldTypeString. If you would not mind this solution, we could help by providing you with the means to format date objects into the string question (the calculate).

At this moment in time we do not support the format-date(date, format) operation but we could consider adding this operation if you think the solution described above would work for you.

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

bobwright — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 14:21:29 GMT

Hi Ismael,

Thanks for the prompt response. Yes that would work fine for me. Thanks for the offer. I actually started down that road and got as far as converting it to a string. I wasn’t sure how to proceed from there. You’ll see that in the attached spreadsheet. And while we’re at it, I would also like it to be a hidden attribute; I need it but the end user does not.

Bob

Bob Wright|GIS Specialist/Certified Wildlife Biologist

Phone: (651) 539-3318 | robert.wright@state.mn.us<mailto:robert.wright@state.mn.us>

5463-C West Broadway, Forest Lake, MN 55025

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

IsmaelChivite — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 03:45:31 GMT

Hi Bob,

the latest version of Survey123 for ArcGIS now supports format-date. To get the date formatted as you originally requested, you will want to use something like this: format-date(${myDateQuestion},'%Y/%m/%d %H:%M'). You can add this expression to a calculation column for example, and keep the output in a text, note or hidden question.

I updated the original https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2016/04/17/dates-and-time-in-survey123-for-arcgis post with details on the new format-date function. I hope this helps!

Ismael

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

MaureenPeniuk — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 03:26:42 GMT

I am getting errors.

I have a datetime field and I have set the default to now(), so ideally I never enter data in this field, it populates automatically.

it is not hidden, nor do I want it to be hidden.

But the format is June 27, 2017 and I want to change it to 2017 June 27.

Can you tell me which fields in the excel file I change or where I would insert

format-date(${SamplingDate},'%Y/%m/%d

Your assistance would be appreciated.

Maureen

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

IsmaelChivite — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 04:39:45 GMT

Hi. The Date widget follows the date format specified in the regional settings of your device (your locale). Next I show what the date will look like in a device set to United States region vs Spain.

Of course, you can use the format-date() function to create a string where you can control exactly the format regardless of the regional settings, but it seems to me like in your case you really want to tweak the regional settings.

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

MaureenPeniuk — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 05:17:10 GMT

Thanks for the swift reply!

I never would have thought to check the device settings!

I am in Canada - and for the date/time settings on my ipad I was able to

change to the 24 hour clock.

But I don't see any place to change the format from month day year to year

month day.

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

IsmaelChivite — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 05:28:29 GMT

Go to Language & Region instead of changing the Date & Time settings. iOS lets you change the Region and the Date format is inherited from that. I personally do not know if it is possible to manipulate the date format in iOS other than through the Region.

As you change the region, you will see the Region Format Examples.

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

MaureenPeniuk — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 05:38:10 GMT

Ah, now I get it... Spain it is !

Thanks so much Ismael!

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

IsmaelChivite — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 05:47:53 GMT

You can also force a language/locale on the form by setting the default language in the settings worksheet of your XLSForm. For example, you can change it to es_ES This I think it is more practical in some cases because you may not want to change the region or have field users change that.

The thing is, I do not know of any locale that would display dates as Year, Month, Day, so we may be at a loss here. The calendar format is limited to those used in the different locales. You will need to find a locale in English that sets the format as you need... and I am not aware of any but there may be one!

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

MaureenPeniuk — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 05:56:10 GMT

Day month year, will work for us for now.

That is better than having the month in the middle at least.

Maureen

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

MaureenPeniuk — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 05:30:49 GMT

Both Canada and South America display as / year month day/ in the form.

In the on-line data table it reverts back to month day year and the am/pm

time.

Maureen

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

AmyHarrigan — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 13:07:39 GMT

Is it possible to get the year format in a spinner appearance rather than in a tab to the before or after year?

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

JamesTedrick — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 22:23:51 GMT

Hi Corey,

Can you clarify a little bit? The year appearance already act much like a spinner appearance:

Are asking for the forward/back areas to be separate buttons?

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

AmyHarrigan — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 10:46:27 GMT

Suppose I was looking to see if there was a way to display year the same way you would for time.

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

DanielMcIlroy — Wed, 16 May 2018 00:36:11 GMT

I was also looking to display my date this way. fingers crossed it is in the pipeline

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

SarahWhitton — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 16:27:16 GMT

I am trying to format my date, for example if I select today's date, December 4, 2018 I get 1543899600000. I added a hidden line with a calculation, as follows, format-date(${ReportDate},'%d/%m/%y') . I would like to reference this new formatted date in a calculation, which will produce an email (shown below).

When I insert the hidden line for the format-date, I get an error.

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

JamesTedrick — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 20:32:48 GMT

Hi Sarah,

What is the error that you get after adding the hidden line?

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

MichelleWilliamsERM — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 19:10:46 GMT

Is it possible to get this to work? I'm getting the UGLY Number right now:

type	name	label	calculation
select_one yes_no	BMPsRequired	New/Additional BMP Needed
text	BMPRepairStatusUGLY	BMP Repair Needed Date	if(${BMPsRequired}='Yes', now(), 'None')
text	BMPRepairStatus	BMP Repair Needed Date	format-date(${BMPRepairStatusUGLY},'%Y/%m/%d %H:%M')

Re: Formatting date in Survey123

FRSadmin — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 04:38:57 GMT

Hello,

I am trying to get this to display seconds using `%h:%M:%S` but it will only show seconds as 00 in survey123...

Is there anyway to autofill the seconds part using the now() data?