topic Unique help with AM/PM in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Unique help with AM/PM

Alyciacamille — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 21:12:42 GMT

Hello Community,

I've been developing a survey in connect for field data collection. We're deploying an underwater camera system where I need to record the time multiple times down to the second. That was a bit of a headache but found help figuring that out by creating a button. Now I've hit another wall where its displayed in 24 hr time and I can't figure out how to change it to 12 hr AM/PM time so that the data export can match our existing access database. Not the end of the world if I can't get it to work, just trying to avoid as much post processing as possible. Here's a sample of what I have on my spreadsheet, any help is appreciated!:

type

name

label

calculation

relevant

select_one update_drop	refresh_drop	Drop Time:
calculate	drop_time	Drop Time	once(format-date(now(), '%n/%e/%Y %H:%M:%S'))	${refresh_drop}="record"
note	camera_drop_time	${drop_time}

Re: Unique help with AM/PM

Leena_Abdulqader — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:32:22 GMT

Hello @Alyciacamille, You're almost there! I believe Survey123 uses Java’s SimpleDateFormat rules under the hood so if we followed the same rules in your calculation field, instead of using %H, we should use %I (capital i) instead for hour (01–12) format, and at the end add %p for AM/PM marker.

once(format-date(now(), '%m/%d/%Y %I:%M:%S %p'))

Please let me know if that works, it sounds exciting!🤠

Re: Unique help with AM/PM

Neal_t_k — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 13:32:22 GMT

if that doesn't work here are a couple resources

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/formatting-time-into-12-hour-with-am-pm/td-p/1405322

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/time-question-in-12-hour-format-in-feature-report/td-p/1038215

Re: Unique help with AM/PM

Alyciacamille — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 18:06:49 GMT

Thank you so much for the quick response and help! Sadly, I'm getting an error converting XLSForm message: b"ODK Validate Errors:\n>> Something broke the parser. See above for a hint.\nError evaluating field 'transect_end_time': unrecognized escape in date format string [%I]\nCaused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: unrecognized escape in date format string [%I]\n\t... 10 more\n\nResult: Invalid"

I'll keep tinkering around 🙂

Re: Unique help with AM/PM

Leena_Abdulqader — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 18:17:09 GMT

Bummer! I'm so sorry, 🙁 have you tried what Neal shared below?

Re: Unique help with AM/PM

abureaux — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 20:02:58 GMT

This is indeed the solution. I won't mark as the solution as the OP hasn't responded back yet though.

Re: Unique help with AM/PM

Alyciacamille — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 20:50:56 GMT

Thank you! I had come across these posts but thought I was too much of a beginner to get it to work. Here's my final code if anyone happens to need to record date and time in a 12 hr format down to the second:

type	name	label	calculation	relevant
calculate	transect_start_raw		once(now())	${refresh_start}="record"
select_one update_start	refresh_start	Start Time:
calculate	transect_start_time	Time Started	concat(format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%m/%d/%Y'), ' ', if(int(format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%H')) < 12, concat(if(int(format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%H')) = 0, '12', string(int(format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%H')))), ':', format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%M'), ':', format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%S'), ' AM'), concat(if(int(format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%H')) = 12, '12', string(int(format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%H') - 12))), ':', format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%M'), ':', format-date(${transect_start_raw}, '%S'), ' PM')))	${refresh_start}="record"
note	start_time	${transect_start_time}