Date Questions

A Date question is one of the question types that can be added to a Form action. This article discusses Date questions in more detail.

NOTE: Before reading this article, it is recommended to read about Form actions first. For more information, see Form Action.

Table of Contents

• What is a Date Question?
• Setting Up a Date Question
• Advanced Options
• Combining From and To Dates in the Limit Date Range Section
• Formatting a Date Question Square Bracket
• Sample Usage

What is a Date Question?

When used in a Form action, a Date question displays a Calendar icon that users can click to select a date.

When you click the icon, the default Calendar that comes with a Date question is opened. Selecting a year displays the months in a year, selecting a month displays the dates, then clicking the date selects it.

Aside from its use in workflows where a date needs to be selected, a Date question is also used to calculate the period between two dates. For example, to count down the days until the New Year.

In case the default Calendar does not suit your needs, setting the Date question's Advanced Options will allow you to customize a Calendar that will fit your workflow.

Setting Up a Date Question

To add a Date question to a Form action, select it from the list on the Action Editor. You can then start setting up the Date question. For more information, see Setting Up a Form Action.

Advanced Options

Under a Date question's Advanced options section, you can set up the following:

• Default value: The default date that will be displayed on the Calendar.
  • • This is set to Select from [square_brackets] by default. To use a square bracket for the default value, enter the square bracket name on the box below.
    • You can also set this to Select input, in which case you can select either Current Date (the date at the time a user is filling in the form) or the date at the time you, as the Admin or Manager user, are creating the workflow.
• Input date format: The format of the selected date, as displayed on the User Application.
• Limit Date Range: The range of dates that will be displayed for selection. This is set to None by default. You can change this to custom From and To dates. For more information, see Combining To and From Dates in the Limit Date Range Section.
• square_bracket.period: The start date for calculating the time period between two dates. This can be set to Current Date (the date at the time a user is filling in the form) or a custom date.
• [square_bracket.period] units: The default unit for the calculated time period between two dates. This is set to Years by default. You can change this to Months, Weeks, or Days.
• To how many decimal places?: The number of decimal places for the calculated time period between two dates. For example, a calculated period of 3.67 weeks means that the decimal places has been set to 2.
• Button name: Form actions are set to be non-scrollable by default, meaning you have to click a button at the bottom of each Question page to go to the next question. The button name is set to Continue by default. You can set a new name for the button here.
• Conditional Questions: Each question type you can use in a Form action can be set to include Conditional Questions, if required. With Conditional questions, a question can be made to appear or disappear, depending on certain conditions. For more information, see Conditional Questions.

Combining From and To Dates in the Limit Date Range Section

When setting up the Limit Date Range section under Advanced Options, only the following combinations of To Dates and From Dates will work.

FROM DATE	TO DATE
None	None
None	Custom Date
None	Current Date
1 Year before To Date	Custom Date
1 Year before To Date	Current Date

Formatting a Date Question Square Bracket

When used in another Action, for example, a Page action, a square bracket for a Date Question can be formatted using the procedure seen in the video below.

This is allowed regardless of the selected input date format for the Date question (see Advanced Options above).

Sample Usage

Set the Advanced Options for a Date question using the image below as a guide. For more information, see Advanced Options.

When run within a workflow on the User Application, the above settings will allow easy selection of the current date from the Calendar.