Localizing date and time formats

Companies outside of the United States might want to translate date and time fields in reports, for example, to show dates formatted as dd/MM/yyyy instead of MM/dd/yyyy. Some date and time formatting is determined by your language and locale settings, while some is configurable only through translation settings.

The syntax typically looks like dd/MM/yyyy, where dd represents the day of month, MM represents the month of year, and yyyy represents the year. For more information, see Date and time formatting.

Note: Because multiple localization elements affect the user experience, ensure that you test your localization configuration thoroughly before making it available to users.

Reporting formats affected by locales

In many reports, such as Responses List and Responses Form reports, the reporting application displays Event fields with Date and Date/Time data types in the format defined by the reporting locale. By default, the reporting application uses American English (en). For more information, see Java Locales.

To show dates in another format, you must create a new language and a new locale, as described in Configuring languages and locales.

Manual translations

For date and time formats not affected by locale configurations (such as the Activity log, Mobile app, custom time periods, etc.), you can edit these formats on Translate strings manually.

Note: Not all of the translatable date formats affect reports.

Using K-fields to localize date and time formats

While you can change most date and time formats through locales and translations, you can also use K-fields to change date and time formats in:

Alert email templates
Rapid response email templates
Push reports

Use the formatDate function in your K-field, as in the example below. Since this function returns a string, the Alt Set must be of the type Text:

K-fields can calculate new date and time formats.

Note: When inserting dates into an email template, you can use the standard version or the pretty version. The pretty version allows you to use a different format without a K-field:

You can use standard and pretty versions of Date fields in email templates.

In the Translations screen, pretty version appear as available for translation:

You can translate pretty versions of Date fields.

In this following plain text example, the pretty version of expiration date renders as July 26, 2016, while the standard version renders as 7/28/16. The standard version is based on the reporting locale and cannot be changed. Note that DateTime fields and Date fields render somewhat differently:

DateTime
Pretty: July 28, 2016 at 3:00 AM
Standard: 7/28/16 3:00 AM

Date
Pretty: July 28, 2016
Standard: July 28, 2016

Manual invitations

You can configure the date format required for manual invitations on the Company > Units > Groups Admin screen:

Define date formats for manual invitations on the Company > Units > Groups Admin screen.

Exports

If you need a specific date format for exports, set properties in the Formatting options section of the Integrations > Data Export > Exports screen:

Define date formats for exports on the Integrations > Data Export > Exports screen.

AutoImporter

Your company representative might provide data files using varying date formats. To correct this, ensure that you set the correct format in your AutoImporter spec. For example:

Define date formats for imports in AutoImporter specs.