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Using Date and DateTime in
Formulas
Salesforce Spring

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Last updated November

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Using Date DateTime and Time Values in Formulas
Sample Date Formulas

USING DATE DATETIME AND TIME VALUES IN FORMULAS

Date formulas are useful for managing payment deadlines contract ages or any other features of
your organization that are time or date dependent

EDITIONS

Two data types are used for working with dates Date and DateTime One data type Time is
independent of the date for tracking time such as business hours Most values that are used when
working with dates are of the Date data type which store the year month and day Some fields
such as CreatedDate are DateTime fields meaning they not only store a date value but also

a time value stored in GMT but displayed in the users time zone Date DateTime and Time fields

are formatted in the users locale when viewed in reports and record detail pages A Time values

precision is in milliseconds A DateTime values precision is in seconds

Available in both Salesforce
Classic and Lightning
Experience
Available in All Editions

You can use operations like addition and subtraction on Date DateTime and TIme values to calculate a future date or elapsed time
between two dates or times If you subtract one date from another for example the resulting value will be the difference between the
two initial values in days Number data type The same operation between two DateTime values returns a decimal value indicating
the difference in number of days hours and minutes The same operation between two Time values returns millisecond
For example if the difference between two DateTime values is that means the two values are separated by five days hours

of a day and minutes of a day You can also add numeric values to Dates and DateTimes For example the operation TODAY

returns three days after todays date For more information and examples of working with dates see the list of Sample Date
Formulas
Throughout the examples the variables date and datetime are used in place of actual Date and DateTime fields or values
Keep in mind that complex date functions tend to compile to a larger size than text or number formula functions so you might run into
issues with formula compile size See Tips for Reducing Formula Size for help with this problem

TODAY NOW and TIMENOW

The TODAY function returns the current day month and year as a Date data type This function is useful for formulas where you are

concerned with how many days have passed since a previous date the date of a certain number of days in the future or if you just want
to display the current date

The NOW function returns the DateTime value of the current moment Its useful when you are concerned with specific times of day

as well as the date

The TIMENOW function returns a value in GMT representing the current time without the date Use this function instead of the

NOW function if you want the current hour minute seconds or milliseconds This value is useful for tracking time like work shifts or

elapsed time
For details on how to convert between Date values and DateTime values see Converting Between DateTime and Date

The DATE Function

The DATE function returns a Date value given a year month and day Numerical YMD values and the YEAR MONTH and

DAY functions are valid parameters for DATE For example DATE returns June Similarly DATE

YEAR TODAY MONTH TODAY returns the Date value of the first day three months from today in the

current year assuming the date is valid for example the month falls between and

Using Date DateTime and Time Values in Formulas

If the inputted YMD values result in an invalid date the DATE function returns an error so error checking is an important part of

working with Date values You can read about methods for handling invalid dates in Sample Date Formulas

Converting Between DateTime and Date
Date and DateTime arent interchangeable data types so when you want to perform operations between Date and DateTime values

you need to convert the values so they are both the same type Some functions such as YEAR MONTH and DAY also only

work on Date values so DateTime values must be converted first

Use the DATEVALUE datetime function to return the Date value of a DateTime For example to get the year from a

DateTime use YEAR DATEVALUE datetime

You can convert a Date value to a DateTime using the DATETIMEVALUE date function The time will be set to am in

Greenwich Mean Time GMT and then converted to the time zone of the user viewing the record when its displayed For a user located

in San Francisco DATETIMEVALUE TODAY returns pm on the previous day during Daylight Saving Time rather than

am of the current day See A Note About DateTime and Time Zones for more information

Converting Between DateTime and Time

The TIMEVALUE function returns a Time data type value in HHMMSSMS hoursminutessecondsmilliseconds format using a

hour clock Numerical HMSMS values and the HOUR MINUTE SECONDS and MILLISECONDS functions are

valid parameters for TIMEVALUE

Use the TIMEVALUEvalue function to return the Time value of a DateTime type text merge field or expression For example
extract the time from a ClosedDate DateTime value with TIMEVALUEClosedDate

Converting Between Date and Text

If you want to include a date as part of a string wrap the Date value in the TEXT function to convert it to text For example if you

want to return todays date as text use

Todays date is TEXT TODAY

This returns the date in the format YYYYMMDD rather than in the localedependent format You can change the format by extracting

the day month and year from the date first and then recombining them in the format you want For example

Todays date is TEXT MONTH date TEXT DAY date TEXT YEAR

date

You can also convert text to a Date so you can use the string value with your other Date fields and formulas Youll want your text to be

formatted as YYYYMMDD Use this formula to return the Date value

DATEVALUE YYYYMMDD

Converting Between DateTime and Text

You can include DateTime values in a string using the TEXT function but you need to be careful of time zones For example

consider this formula

The current date and time is TEXT NOW

Using Date DateTime and Time Values in Formulas

In this formula NOW is offset to GMT Normally NOW would be converted to the users time zone when viewed but because its

been converted to text the conversion wont happen So if you execute this formula on August st at PM in San Francisco time

GMT the result is The current date and time is Z

When you convert a DateTime to text a Z is included at the end to indicate GMT TEXT datetime returns Z if the field is

blank So if the DateTime value youre working with might be blank check for this before converting to text

IF

ISBLANK datetime

TEXT datetime

To convert a string to a DateTime value use DATETIMEVALUE passing in a string in the format YYYYMMDD HHMMSS This

method returns the DateTime value in GMT

Converting Between Time and Text

If you want to include time as part of a string wrap the Time value in the TEXT function to convert it to text For example if you

want to return the current time as text use

The time is TEXT TIMENOW

This function returns the time in the format HHMMSSMS

You can also convert text to a Time data type so you can use the string value with your other Time fields and formulas Format your text

as HHMMSSMS on a hour clock Use the TIMEVALUE function

TIMEVALUE

A Note About DateTime and Time Zones

Date and DateTime values are stored in GMT When a record is saved field values are adjusted from the users time zone to GMT and

then adjusted back to the viewers time zone when displayed in record detail pages and reports With Date conversions this doesnt
pose a problem since converting a DateTime to a Date results in the same Date value

When working with DateTime fields and values however the conversion is always done in GMT not the users time zone Subtracting

a standard DateTime field from another isnt a problem because both fields are in the same time zone When one of the values in the
calculation is a conversion from a Text or Date value to a DateTime value however the results are different

Lets say a San Francisco user enters a value of AM on August in a custom DateTime field called DateTimec This

value is stored as Z because the time difference in Pacific Daylight Time is GMT At pm PDT on August

st the user views the record and the following formula is run

DateTimec NOW

In the calculation NOW is Z and then subtracted from Z to return the expected result of

hours

Suppose that instead of NOW the formula converts the string to a DateTime value

DateTimec DATETIMEVALUE

In this case DATETIMEVALUE is Z and returns a result of or

hours

Using Date DateTime and Time Values in Formulas

Theres no way to determine a users time zone in a formula If all of your users are in the same time zone you can adjust the time zone

difference by adding or subtracting the time difference between the users time zone and GMT to your converted values However since

time zones can be affected by Daylight Saving Time and the start and end dates for DST are different each year this is difficult to manage

in a formula We recommend using Apex for transactions that require converting between DateTime values and Text or Date values

SAMPLE DATE FORMULAS

Find the Day Month or Year from a Date

EDITIONS

Use the functions DAY date MONTH date and YEAR date to return their

numerical values Replace date with a value of type Date for example TODAY

Available in both Salesforce
Classic and Lightning
Experience

To use these functions with DateTime values first convert them to a date with the DATEVALUE

function For example DAY DATEVALUE datetime

Available in All Editions

Find Out If a Year Is a Leap Year

This formula determines whether a year is a leap year A year is only a leap year if its divisible by or if its divisible by four but not by

OR

MOD YEAR date

AND

MOD YEAR date

Find Which Quarter a Date Is In
For standard quarters you can determine which quarter a date falls in using this formula This formula returns the number of the quarter
that date falls in by dividing the current month by three the number of months in each quarter and taking the ceiling

CEILING MONTH date

The formula for shifted quarters is similar but shifts the month of the date by the number of months between January and the first

quarter of the fiscal year The following example shows how to find a dates quarter if Q starts in February instead of January

CEILING MONTH date

ITo check whether a date is in the current quarter add a check to compare the dates year and quarter with TODAYs year and quarter

AND

CEILING MONTH date CEILING MONTH TODAY

YEAR date YEAR TODAY

Sample Date Formulas

Find the Week of the Year a Date Is In
To find the number of a dates week of the year use this formula

IF

CEILING date DATE YEAR date

To find the current week number determine the days to date in the current year and divide that value by The IF statement ensures

that the week number the formula returns doesnt exceed So if the given date is December of the given year the formula returns
even though its more than weeks after the first week of January

Find Whether Two Dates Are in the Same Month
To determine whether two Dates fall in the same month say for a validation rule to determine whether an opportunity Close Date is in
the current month use this formula

AND

MONTH date MONTH date

YEAR date YEAR date

Find the Last Day of the Month
The easiest way to find the last day of a month is to find the first day of the next month and subtract a day

IF

MONTH date

DATE YEAR date

DATE YEAR date MONTH date

Display the Month as a String Instead of a Number
To return the month as a text string instead of a number use

CASE

MONTH date

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September

Sample Date Formulas

October
November
December

If your organization uses multiple languages you can replace the names of the month with a custom label

CASE

MONTH date

LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear
LabelMonthofYear

Find and Display the Day of the Week from a Date
To find the day of the week from a Date value use a known Sunday for example January and subtract it from the date for

example TODAY to get the difference in days The MOD function finds the remainder of this result when divided by to give

the numerical value of the day of the week between Sunday and Saturday The formula below finds the result and then returns
the text name of that day

CASE

MOD date DATE

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

This formula only works for dates after If you work with older dates use the same process with any Sunday before to your
earliest date for example
You can adjust this formula if your week starts on a different day For example if your week starts on Monday you can use January
in your condition The new formula looks like this

CASE

MOD date DATE

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

Sample Date Formulas

Saturday
Sunday

Like the formula for getting the name of the month if your organization uses multiple languages you can replace the names of the day
of the week with a variable like LabelDayofWeek and so on

Find the Next Day of the Week After a Date
To find the date of the next occurrence of a particular day of the week following a given Date get the difference in the number of days
of the week between a date and a dayofweek a number where Sunday and Saturday By adding this difference to

the current date you can find the date of the dayofweek The IF statement in this formula handles cases where the

dayofweek is before the day of the week of the date value for example date is a Thursday and dayofweek is a Monday
by adding to the difference

date dayofweek MOD date DATE

IF

MOD date DATE dayofweek

You can substitute either a constant or another field in for the dayofweek value based on your needs

Find the Number of Days Between Two Dates
To find the number of days between two dates date and date subtract the earlier date from the later date date
date

You can alter this slightly if you want to determine a date thats a certain number of days in the past For example to create a formula
to return true if some date field is more than days before the current date and false otherwise use a formula such as the following

TODAY date

Find the Number of Business Days Between Two Dates
Calculating how many business days passed between two dates is slightly more complex than calculating total elapsed days The basic
strategy is to choose a reference Monday from the past and find out how many full weeks and any additional portion of a week have
passed between the reference date and your date These values are multiplied by five for a fiveday work week and then the difference
between them is taken to calculate business days

FLOOR

date DATE MIN MOD date DATE

In this formula date is the more recent date and date is the earlier date If your work week runs shorter or longer than five
days replace all fives in the formula with the length of your week

Sample Date Formulas

Find the Number of Months Between Two Dates
To find the number of months between two dates subtract the year of the earlier date from the year of the later date and multiply the
difference by Next subtract the month of the earlier date from the month of the later date and add that difference to the value of
the first set of operations
YEARdate YEARdate MONTHdate MONTHdate

Add Days Months and Years to a Date
If you want to add a certain number of days to a date add that number to the date directly For example to add five days to a date the
formula is date
Adding years to a date is fairly simple but do check that the future date is valid That is adding five years to February a leap year
results in an invalid date The following formula adds numyears to date by checking if the date is February and if the future
date is not in a leap year If these conditions hold true the formula returns March in the future year Otherwise the formula sets the
Date to the same month and day numyears in the future

IF

AND

MONTH date

DAY date

NOT

OR

MOD YEAR date

AND

MOD YEAR date

DATE YEAR date numyears

DATE YEAR date numyears MONTH date DAY date

Adding months to a date is slightly more complicated because months vary in length and the cycle of months restart with each year

So a valid day in one month January might not be valid in another month February A simple solution is to approximate each

months length as days
date Numbermonths

This formula is a good estimate but it doesnt return an exact date For example if you add two months to April using this method
the formula will return June instead of June Returning an exact date depends on your organizations preference For example
when you add one month to January should it return February the last day of the next month or March days after January

This formula does the following
Returns March if the future month is a February and the day is greater than This portion of the formula performs the same for
both leap and nonleap years
Returns the first day of the next month if the future month is April June September or November and the day is greater than

Sample Date Formulas

Otherwise it returns the correct date in the future month
This example formula adds two months to a given date You can modify the conditions on this formula if you prefer different behaviors
for dates at the end of the month

DATE

YEAR date FLOOR MONTH date

MOD MONTH date

IF DAY date CASE MOD MONTH date

DAY date

If you use these formulas for expiration dates you can subtract a day from the return value to make sure that some action is completed
before the calculated date

Add Business Days to a Date
This formula finds three business days from a given date

CASE

MOD date

date
date
date
date
date

DATE

This formula finds the day of the week of the date field value If the date is a Wednesday Thursday or Friday the formula adds five
calendar days two weekend days three weekdays to the date to account for the weekend If date is a Saturday you need four
additional calendar days For any other day of the week Sunday Tuesday simply add three days You can easily modify this formula to
add more or fewer business days The tip for getting the day of the week is useful to use to adjust this formula

Sample Date Formulas

Find the Hour Minute or Second from a DateTime
To get the hour minute and second from a DateTime field as a numerical value use the following formulas where TZoffset is the

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CONTENTS

USING DATE DATETIME AND TIME VALUES IN FORMULAS

EDITIONS

a time value stored in GMT but displayed in the users time zone Date DateTime and Time fields

are formatted in the users locale when viewed in reports and record detail pages A Time values

precision is in milliseconds A DateTime values precision is in seconds

of a day and minutes of a day You can also add numeric values to Dates and DateTimes For example the operation TODAY

TODAY NOW and TIMENOW

The TODAY function returns the current day month and year as a Date data type This function is useful for formulas where you are

The NOW function returns the DateTime value of the current moment Its useful when you are concerned with specific times of day

The TIMENOW function returns a value in GMT representing the current time without the date Use this function instead of the

NOW function if you want the current hour minute seconds or milliseconds This value is useful for tracking time like work shifts or

The DATE Function

The DATE function returns a Date value given a year month and day Numerical YMD values and the YEAR MONTH and

DAY functions are valid parameters for DATE For example DATE returns June Similarly DATE

YEAR TODAY MONTH TODAY returns the Date value of the first day three months from today in the

If the inputted YMD values result in an invalid date the DATE function returns an error so error checking is an important part of

you need to convert the values so they are both the same type Some functions such as YEAR MONTH and DAY also only

Use the DATEVALUE datetime function to return the Date value of a DateTime For example to get the year from a

DateTime use YEAR DATEVALUE datetime

You can convert a Date value to a DateTime using the DATETIMEVALUE date function The time will be set to am in

Greenwich Mean Time GMT and then converted to the time zone of the user viewing the record when its displayed For a user located

in San Francisco DATETIMEVALUE TODAY returns pm on the previous day during Daylight Saving Time rather than

am of the current day See A Note About DateTime and Time Zones for more information

The TIMEVALUE function returns a Time data type value in HHMMSSMS hoursminutessecondsmilliseconds format using a

hour clock Numerical HMSMS values and the HOUR MINUTE SECONDS and MILLISECONDS functions are

valid parameters for TIMEVALUE

If you want to include a date as part of a string wrap the Date value in the TEXT function to convert it to text For example if you

Todays date is TEXT TODAY

This returns the date in the format YYYYMMDD rather than in the localedependent format You can change the format by extracting

Todays date is TEXT MONTH date TEXT DAY date TEXT YEAR

formatted as YYYYMMDD Use this formula to return the Date value

DATEVALUE YYYYMMDD

You can include DateTime values in a string using the TEXT function but you need to be careful of time zones For example

The current date and time is TEXT NOW

In this formula NOW is offset to GMT Normally NOW would be converted to the users time zone when viewed but because its

been converted to text the conversion wont happen So if you execute this formula on August st at PM in San Francisco time

GMT the result is The current date and time is Z

When you convert a DateTime to text a Z is included at the end to indicate GMT TEXT datetime returns Z if the field is

IF

ISBLANK datetime

TEXT datetime

To convert a string to a DateTime value use DATETIMEVALUE passing in a string in the format YYYYMMDD HHMMSS This

method returns the DateTime value in GMT

If you want to include time as part of a string wrap the Time value in the TEXT function to convert it to text For example if you

The time is TEXT TIMENOW

This function returns the time in the format HHMMSSMS

as HHMMSSMS on a hour clock Use the TIMEVALUE function

TIMEVALUE

A Note About DateTime and Time Zones

Date and DateTime values are stored in GMT When a record is saved field values are adjusted from the users time zone to GMT and

When working with DateTime fields and values however the conversion is always done in GMT not the users time zone Subtracting

Lets say a San Francisco user enters a value of AM on August in a custom DateTime field called DateTimec This

value is stored as Z because the time difference in Pacific Daylight Time is GMT At pm PDT on August

DateTimec NOW

In the calculation NOW is Z and then subtracted from Z to return the expected result of

Suppose that instead of NOW the formula converts the string to a DateTime value

DateTimec DATETIMEVALUE

In this case DATETIMEVALUE is Z and returns a result of or

difference by adding or subtracting the time difference between the users time zone and GMT to your converted values However since

time zones can be affected by Daylight Saving Time and the start and end dates for DST are different each year this is difficult to manage

SAMPLE DATE FORMULAS

EDITIONS

Use the functions DAY date MONTH date and YEAR date to return their

numerical values Replace date with a value of type Date for example TODAY

To use these functions with DateTime values first convert them to a date with the DATEVALUE

function For example DAY DATEVALUE datetime

This formula determines whether a year is a leap year A year is only a leap year if its divisible by or if its divisible by four but not by

OR

MOD YEAR date

AND

MOD YEAR date

MOD YEAR date

CEILING MONTH date

quarter of the fiscal year The following example shows how to find a dates quarter if Q starts in February instead of January

CEILING MONTH date

AND

CEILING MONTH date CEILING MONTH TODAY

YEAR date YEAR TODAY