Date and time values

You can use Expressions to generate dynamic date and time values. These values allow you to create time stamps, for instance, or to perform specific Steps on certain dates.

Generate your date and time values in one of the following ways:

• generate values based on the current date and time

• calculate date and time values

• combine current and calculated values

RPA Studio provides on-screen descriptions and examples for date and time Expressions. This is available for Expressions you enter into Step Values.

Specify the date and time format

By default, RPA Studio creates date and time values in the format that you have defined in the Tosca settings at Project > Settings > TBox > Dynamic Temporal Expressions.

If the machine on which you create your Bots uses a different number format than your application, you can specify a different date and time format in one of the following ways:

• In the settings or via configuration parameter as described in "Define date and number formats".

  Settings apply to all folders and Bots in your workspace. Configuration parameters only apply to the folders or Bots for which you create them.

• Directly in the Expression for calculated or combined date and time values.

  The format you define in the Expression only applies to this particular Step. It overrides the settings as well as any configuration parameters for the Bot or folder.

Generate values based on the current date and time

To generate values that are based on the current date and time, use the syntax {COMMAND}.

The table below lists all available commands. The examples in the following two tables assume the following: 

• The current date is June 8th, 2019. The specified date format for RPA Studio is MM-dd-yyyy.

• The current time is 3.09 pm. The specified time format for RPA Studio is HH:mm.

• The language specified in the Windows settings of the workstation is English.

Current date command	Result	Example
DATE	Full date	06-08-2019
TIME	Current time	15:09
DATETIME	Current time stamp	20190608150900
DAY	Current day	8
MONTH	Current month	6
YEAR	Current year	19
MONTHFIRST	First day of the current month as a complete date	06-01-2019
MONTHLAST	Last day of the current month as a complete date	06-30-2019
QUARTERFIRST	First day of the current quarter as a complete date	04-01-2019
TRIMESTERFIRST	First day of the current trimester as a complete date	05-01-2019
HYEARFIRST	First day of the current half year as a complete date	01-01-2019

You can change the values you generate with the commands DAY, MONTH, YEAR, or DATE with a prefix:

Prefix command	Result	Example
LDATE	Weekday and date in full, in the language specified in the Windows settings of your workstation.	Saturday, June 8, 2019
LDAY	Full name of the weekday, in the language specified in the Windows settings of your workstation.	Saturday
LMONTH	Full name of the month, in the language specified in the Windows settings of your workstation.	June
LYEAR	Full year (four-digit)	2019
NDAY	Current day value in double digits. Returns single-digit results with a leading zero.	08
NMONTH	Current month value in double digits. Returns single-digit results with a leading zero.	06
NYEAR	Current year value in double digits. Returns single-digit results with a leading zero.	19
ADAY	Abbreviation of the weekday name, in the language specified in the Windows settings of your workstation.	Sat
AMONTH	Abbreviation of the month name, in the language specified in the Windows settings of your workstation.	Jun

Calculate date and time values

If you don't want to use the current date or time, you can calculate a date or time. The Expression for calculated values also allows you to specify the output format.

To calculate date and time values, use the syntax {DATE[Basedate][Offset][Format]}.

You can leave parameters empty, but you always need to enter the brackets.

• Replace Basedate with a specific date/time, or leave the parameter value empty to use the current date.

  If you add a specific base date/time, the format must be the same as in the settings (see chapter "Specify the date and time format" above).

• Replace Offset with the desired deviation from Basedate:

  Offset	Description
  d	days
  w	workdays, i.e. all weekdays except Saturday and Sunday
  M	months
  y	years
  h	hour as a number from 1 to 12
  H	hour as a number from 0 to 23
  m	minutes
  s	seconds

• Replace Format with the date format you want for the generated value. If you leave the parameter empty, RPA Studio uses the format from the settings (see chapter "Specify the date and time format" above).

  The Format parameter does not work with prefix commands.

Combine current and calculated values

You can also combine current date commands with calculated date and time values. This allows you to calculate a date, which the current date command then uses instead of the actual current date.

To combine commands, use the calculated value as a parameter for the current date command:

{CURRENT DATE COMMAND[{DATE[Basedate][Offset][Format]}]}

You can also use custom .NET framework date and time format strings. For more information, see the Microsoft .NET documentation:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-date-and-time-format-strings and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings.