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    Using the DATETIME_PARSE() formula in Airtable
    • 13 Mar 2024
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    Using the DATETIME_PARSE() formula in Airtable

    • Updated on 13 Mar 2024
    • 1 Minute to read
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    Article summary

    This article covers the DATETIME_PARSE() function—taking date & time information and interpreting it as structured values that Airtable can use to streamline your team's and organization's work.

    Plan availability

    All plan types

    Platform(s)

    Web/Browser, Mac app, and Windows app

    Related reading

    Using the DATETIME_PARSE() function in Airtable

    Using the DATETIME_PARSE() function

    NOTE

    For example, in a single line text field you might have this value written: 9/19/2020 2:00pm. Being a text field, this is simply a text string, and can't be read by Airtable as a date. This means that it can't be used in any of the ways our actual date field can (like for the calendar view).

    To learn more about supported DATETIME_DIFF() time units and specifiers, check out DATETIME_DIFF unit article.

    However, DATETIME_PARSE() can read this text string and convert it to a readable date using a formula like this: DATETIME_PARSE({Text}, 'M/D/YYYY')

    360089623194ScreenShot2020-04-02at34254PM.jpg

    That said, Airtable cannot always understand date input formats. If you use a format that DATETIME_PARSE can't translate without some help, you can specify a format to match the format of your date text string so Airtable knows which parts are which.

    To start, look at the available format specifiers and create a version of your date text string that's replaced with the appropriate format specifiers. For example, if your data is coming with this format - 4 Mar 2017 23:00 - you would use this specifier: D MMM YYYY HH:mm.

    360091779273Image2020-09-17at112406AM.png
    360089624634Image2020-09-17at112454AM.png

    Using the locale function in Airtable

    Using the locale function

    An optional function that can be used within DATETIME_PARSE is the SET_LOCALE function. This takes a given datetime input and returns that datetime formatted to match a particular locale. An example formula structure using this function would look like: DATETIME_PARSE({Text}, 'M/D/YYYY',)

    DATETIME_FORMAT(SET_LOCALE({Date Field}, 'af'), 'LLLL')
    For more information, and examples, on using SET_LOCALE() please see our support article here.

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