How to Format Date and Time

Formatting date and time is crucial for serving customers in different regions, as date and time formats vary across countries and cultures. ChitChatbot makes it easy to customize how your bot displays dates and times to match your users’ preferences.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you set up date and time formatting within your flows:

---

Step 1: Choose the Flow to Edit

Navigate to the flow where you want to format a date or time.

---

Step 2: Add the Action

In the flow’s block builder:

• Select the “Action” option.
• From the list of actions, choose “Format Date / Date & Time”.

---

Step 3: Configure the Format

Within the Format Date / Date & Time action, do the following:

✅ Select the Date Field

• Choose the custom field containing the date you want to format.

✅ Enter the Desired Format

• In the Format field, type the pattern you want to display.
  For example, to show the date and time as 23-01-2022; 02:00 a.m, enter: d-m-Y; h-i a
• Refer to the table below for all available formatting parameters.

✅ Save the Formatted Date

• Either create a new custom field or select an existing one in the “Save the formatted date to” field.

✅ Set the Time Zone

• You can choose whether to format the date in the page’s time zone or the user’s time zone.

Finally, click Save to apply these settings.

---

Formatting Parameters for Date & Time

Character	Description	Example Values
Day
d	Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros	01 to 31
D	Short textual representation of a day (3 letters)	Mon through Sun
j	Day of the month without leading zeros	1 to 31
l	Full textual day of the week	Sunday through Saturday
N	ISO-8601 numeric day of the week	1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday)
S	English ordinal suffix (st, nd, rd, th)	st, nd, rd, th
w	Numeric day of the week (0 for Sunday)	0 to 6
z	Day of the year, starting from 0	0 to 365
Week
W	ISO-8601 week number of year	01 to 53
Month
F	Full textual month (January, February, etc.)	January through December
m	Numeric month with leading zeros	01 to 12
M	Short textual month (3 letters)	Jan through Dec
n	Numeric month without leading zeros	1 to 12
t	Number of days in the given month	28 to 31
Year
L	Leap year indicator (1 for yes, 0 for no)	0 or 1
o	ISO-8601 year (may differ from calendar year)	1999, 2025, etc.
Y	Four-digit year	1999, 2025
y	Two-digit year	99, 25
Time
a	Lowercase am/pm	am, pm
A	Uppercase AM/PM	AM, PM
g	12-hour format without leading zeros	1 to 12
G	24-hour format without leading zeros	0 to 23
h	12-hour format with leading zeros	01 to 12
H	24-hour format with leading zeros	00 to 23
i	Minutes with leading zeros	00 to 59
s	Seconds with leading zeros	00 to 59
U	Unix timestamp (seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 GMT)	e.g., 1717457692

Note:
The U format is particularly useful for math operations. For example, if you want to calculate how long a user takes to complete a quiz:

({{stop}} - {{start}}) / 60

This calculates the total time in minutes! This would be a maths operation.

---

Example Format

If you want to display:

23-01-2022; 02:00 am

You would use the format string:

d-m-Y; h-i a

---

Key Tips

✅ Double-check the time zone settings to ensure accurate local time for your users.
✅ Store the formatted date in a separate custom field for easy use in your flows.
✅ Use the formatting parameters creatively to suit your audience’s region and language.