I would like to be able to use today's date in a calculated column in a SharePoint list to, for example, determine whether a task is overdue. There is a well-documented trick that involves creating a dummy column named "Today," using it in a formula, and then deleting it, thereby "tricking" SharePoint into using the Today function.
The problem is that this method does not work reliably -- the calculation is not dynamic; it is only made when the item is saved, and therefore the Today "column" effectively becomes the Modified Date. (This is probably why SharePoint won't let you use the Today function in a straight-forward way.)
Has anyone found a solution that works? I know I can use javascript to get the actual date on the client side and display colors, flags, whatever, but I am looking for a "server side" solution.
For reference, the Today column trick and its problems are described fairly well at these two posts and associated comments:
http://blogs.msdn.com/cjohnson/archive/2006/03/16/552314.aspx and http://pathtosharepoint.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/calculated-columns-the-useless-today-trick/
There simply isn't a work around for this. As the values for the list are stored in the database and returned "as is" to other featurs such as the search crawler, a dynamic field cannot be created.
It is possible to create a custom field that will display the value using todays date in its calculation.
In addition to Christophe's (PathToSharePoint)'s article this also covers the Today trick and why it doesn't work
The Truth about using Today in calculated columns
There are a number of fudges, probably the best one is Dessie's console app (mentioned above by MNM)
Dynamically updating a SharePoint calculated column containing a Today reference
Its good but its not perfect, for example you may have to worry about different timezones.
Before going down this route you should ask yourself if you really, really need to do this. For example :-
If you want a countdown (days overdue/days left to complete a task) then you can use SPD and a XLST Data View web part
If you want a view to show overdue items or items created in the last X days ec then you can use [Today] in a views filter 2
If you create a Today column it needs to be updated. You can do that with either a timer job or by placing a jquery script on a page that is hit by the user. The script could call SPServices.SPUpdateMultipleListItems to do the update. Pass a CAML clause so that you only update the list items where the Today value needs to be updated, e.g. once per day.
My advice is to create your on field that does this calculation for you and then reference it in your SharePoint list. Not a simple implementation but it would work.
I have been looking for a solution either, still no luck.. The Today column trick has the limitation of not being dynamic.
I do have one suggestion though, why don't we create a timer job that will update a certain a certain column with the current date every day at 12 AM. I know some of you all might think it an over head. Just my suggestion :D!!
I came up with a very rough, but working solution to this problem without having to do any coding. I'll explain both how i made the today column and how i worked that in to an overdue column, becuase that column was a pain to find out how to do as well.
First, I made a column named "today" (gasp!). Next I made a column named "Days Overdue". I then opened up sharepoint designer and created a new workflow. I set it to run every time an item is edited/updated (keep in mind I turned off versioning for this list, otherwise I would have had to resort to coding to avoid a bunch of useless data building up on our server). I set the actions to simply store the modified date in a workflow variable, then change the value of the today column to that variable. although the modified column is a date/time and my today column is just a date, it transfers just fine. I then set the workflow to pause for 2 hours. you can set this to whatever amount of time you want obviously, it will just change the latest possible time for your today column to update, i.e. 2AM in my case.
on to the days overdue column. this is the code for that guy -
=IF([Due Date]>Today,"None",IF([Date Closed]=0,Today-[Due Date],IF([Due Date]>[Date Closed],"None",IF(Today>=[Date Closed],[Date Closed]-[Due Date],IF([Due Date]<Today,Today-[Due Date])))))
This shows the days overdue in number form in days, or if its not overdue, it shows "None". You can use either a number format or a string format, but NOT A DATE FORMAT. Well, I hope this helps anyone who is running into this problem and doesn't want to have to delve into coding.
EDIT: I forgot to say that in the code above for the days overdue column, I put in that if today is past the date closed, to use the date closed minus the due date instead of today minus due date, to ensure that the calculation doesnt keep occurring after an item has been closed. you probably would have noticed that in the code, but i felt i should point it out just in case.
EDIT 2: The code I had in before my 2nd edit for my calculated column didn't calculate the days overdue properly after an issue had been marked "closed." I put in the updated code. The last part of the code doesn't make sense, as it is the same logic as the beginning, but it worked so I didn't want to take any chances! :)
Peace.
I've used the following and had no problems.
Field Name: Overdue
Field Type: Calculated
Data Type Returned: Yes/No
Formula:
=AND([Due Date]<NOW(),Status<>"Completed",[Due Date]<>"")
Here is a workaround:
Create a date column called Today.
Use this column in your calculated formula (ignore the fact that the formula returns a wrong value).
After you are done with the formula, delete the Today column from your list.
For some reason it works this way! Now Sharepoint treats the Today in your formula as today's date.
Note: If you decide you want to change the formula, you have to create the Today column again. Otherwise, it wouldn't recognize Today as a valid column.
I Tried #Farzad's approach and it seems to be working perfectly. I wanted to do a custom count on Days Elapsed so added a calculated column which previously I was using a difference between the Created Date and Modified Date Columns, which was only showing up whenever a user updated the post, much to my dismay.
I now have a formula which works as I would want to and uses the Today column, and here it is for anyone who would like to use it. I also have a Status column on the basis of which a base of On Hold is used, and the remaining formula are based on the date difference of Today - Created.
=IF(Status="On Hold","On Hold",IF(AND(Today=Created,(DATEDIF(Created,Today,"D")=0)),"New",IF(AND(Today<>Created,(DATEDIF(Created,Today,"D")=0)),"New (updated)",IF(DATEDIF(Created,Today,"d")>3,"Need Update Immediately",IF(DATEDIF(Created,Today,"d")=1,"One day old",IF(DATEDIF(Created,Today,"d")=2,"Two days old",""))))))
Basically its just a bunch of nested IF conditions which get me labels on the basis of which I can add a group to my view and filter out data if needed. Hope this helps anyone looking for an answer!
Related
I am really struggling with excel, if this is easy then I apologize, but I'm very new to using excel so clear instructions would be really helpful.
The task I'm trying to achieve is creating a spreadsheet to track the dates of some safety checks on equipment.
I have columns for the equipment name (which doesn't change), and the name of the person who checked it, which needs to be filled manually, I am trying to use a formula to automatically input the date of check (the current date) and the date the next check is needed (3, 6, or 12 months from the current date depending on the piece of equipment in question). I have tried using the TODAY() function, and TODAY()+X(number of days), but these change every day which is not what I want, is there any way to have excel automatically calculate and fill these dates, but then not change them until a particular cell (i.e. name of person who checked) is updated?
I know about setting calculation to manual, but that stops calculations even when new data is entered, I need to be able to update the sheet, and have existing dates remain unchanged (hoping that makes sense).
And again, very new to excel, so please make answers as easy to follow as possible.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, all the best.
Simplest solution (that works on all machines):
Ctrl+;
ref : https://stackoverflow.com/a/31771724/7602468
Official OEM solution :
Use Worksheet.Change event in your VBA code.
ref : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/excel.worksheet.change
Credit :
#Euler's Disgraced Stepchild
#Tom Sharpe
#Gary's Student
Please share if it works/not..
Here is a page that can help. Scroll to
Creating a Custom Function to Insert Timestamp
I've been stuck with an annoying problem for a while that I can't fix. I have a field in all of the documents that represents time- a date in format dd.mm.yyyy.
What I'm trying to do is to categorise them- Show the documents that have todays date, that will have todays date in closest 7 days, etc.
Here's the code (formula for the categorized field) that I have:
#If(#Today > pi_due_date; "Late docs"; #Today=pi_due_dat; "Todays docs";((pi_due_date - #Now)/86400)>0 &((pi_due_date - #Now)/86400)<7;"This weeks docs";"Future docs")
Everything was fine until today (after 12:00 PM) I noticed that this part: #Today=pi_due_dat; "Todays docs"; does not work, it does not return the document in the "Todays docs" category. Pretty much the same thing is happening to all the other categories and I don't understand what is causing this problem.
pi_due_dat is missing the 'e' at the end.
Assuming it is more than that, though, you'll want to make sure that you are only comparing the dates and not a date/time.
Try #Date(pi_due_date) = #Today instead.
I would like to point out that using #Today or #Now in a view (selection criteria or column value) will create serious performance issues, as the view will be constantly re-indexed. It will affect all applications on that server as well.
You may want to rethink the design, perhaps have a scheduled nightly agent that set a flag on the documents to indicate how they are boing categorized.
I have calulated column which display's the value based on the difference between today and requested date field.
=Today-[Requested Date]
This is working fine in Sharepoint Standard View. But the same is not working with the datasheet view . The calculated column is showing as below
=#NAME?-[Requested Date].
Due to this i am not able to save the data. Can anyone please let me know how to solve this ?
Which SharePoint version are you using?
I tried the same scenario using SharePoint 2013 and was able to add the values in both standard and datasheet views. I am assuming you might have used the same steps.
Create 2 new columns named RequestedDate(DateTime) and
Today(Single line of text).
Add a new column of type calculated field with formula
=Today-[Requested Date].
Now delete the Today column.
Try entering the data in both the views.
First I have used today() function to calculate difference between 2 days except working days. The list is not automatically updating. If we change the Start_Date, then it calculates and gives the value. Can you suggest me why this happens?
You have mentioned in your post that there is some tricks in using today() function. I have created separate Today_Date column in my list. And Used the same column name in finding difference between 2 days. Here also the same problem exists.
The formula I used is,
=IF(AND((WEEKDAY([Today Date],2))<(WEEKDAY([Release Date],2)),((WEEKDAY([Release Date],2))-(WEEKDAY([Today Date],2)))>1),(((DATEDIF([Release Date],[Today Date],"D")+1))-(FLOOR((DATEDIF([Release Date],[Today Date],"D")+1)/7,1)*2)-2),(((DATEDIF([Release Date],[Today Date],"D")+1))-(FLOOR((DATEDIF([Release Date],[Today Date],"D")+1)/7,1)*2)))
Please tell me how to make the difference between 2 date values update automatically every time I open the list.
Then I tried the trick which you have mentioned above. But it works while I enter the data. When I open the list for the next day or some other day's after the Calculated column is not taking the current day's value, do the data remains same. what should I need to do in case it needs to take current date's value and calculate the formula?
Is there a way to make "date and time" column in SharePoint so it will behave in this way:
-if date that is entered in that column is today, tomorrow that column will be empty.
To explain it a lil' bit better, lets put it this way:
That column is reservation column. User enters the date on which he will stop doing something:
column_1-column_2-column_3-RESERVATION_COLUMN
If today is 01.01.2012, and I will be doing something till 05.01.2012., I will enter "05.01.2012." in RESERVATION_COLUMN". When that day comes, or the day after it (isn't really mather) that column will be empty.
I tried some ways, but I didn't succeed. Any help?
Thanks in advance,
K.
Only way I can think of is using a workflow.
Using workflow -> Wait till day + 1 then Set field value to blank.
also you can create TimerJob, which will be executed one or few times per day.
This timer job will query list items with your parameters, like items, where in the date field is value equals today or less then today. Then TimerJob will iterate and update this field.
Other, more difficult way is to write your own custom datatime field with specific behavior.
The formula I am using is:
=IF((DATEDIF(Todaycalc,[TERMINATION DATE],"d"))<0,"Expired","")
but while it calculates for the NO, I am getting a #NUM error for the part I want to return as "expired". the calculated field is set to text.
I'm not sure what the TodayCalc item in your DATEDIF function is. If this is a column then it needs to be inside brackets [Todaycalc]. If you are trying to use the TODAY formula to return the current date, you cannot use this (or ME) in Calculated Columns.
There is a trick to getting this to "work" where you use a column named Today, use it in the formula then delete it. But it is a silly trick since it still only calculates when an item is created/modified. You might as well use the Modified column.
As #thisChrisKent has said you can't use the [Today] trick without some serious workarounds - it just doesn't work as you would expect it too.
You've a couple of options for doing this sort of dynamic view.
Convert the List View Web Part (LVWP) to a Data View Web Part (DVWP) and add formatting via SharePoint designer and/or XSLT/JavaScript
Add javascript in a Content Editor Web Part to apply the formatting - Christophe is a great source for this sort of stuff which you could adapt for your needs.
3rd party products and custom calcualted columns - such as Highlighter, Follow-Up, Corus Works and others
(disclaimer - first link is from my own company)