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Using the date field widget on an Online form

36  Administrator April 14, 2023  Forms

Using the date field widget on an Online form

Adding a date field widget to a form is useful for a range of situations including :-

  • setting today's date.
  • entering an historical date e.g. date of birth.
  • capturing the date of a future event e.g. date of next service.

These scenarios can be improved further using other options within the field editing process.

  1. Capturing today's date

Adding a date widget to an Online form by default will display today's date thanks to the GETDATE() function automatically added to the field calculation option.

If you don't want the person completing the form to be able to change the date just set the field to be Read Only, meaning it will be display the date but is not able to be edited.

2. Entering an historical date 

In this scenario do NOT set the date field as Read Only so that it can be edited. Clicking into the widget on the live form will display the calendar defaulting to the current month & date.

To go back in time by only a short period such a month or two use the forward to back arrows either side of the month displayed at the top of the widget.

To jump by a bigger period of time click on the Month & Year displayed at the top of the widget and then select a month within the Year displayed.

To go back in years over a larger date range click twice on the Year and Month displayed and then select the required Year. Use the forward and back arrows to narrow down the range.

Clicking a 3rd time on the Year displayed at the top will give an even greater range of years to select from.

3. Capturing a future event

Follow that same steps as 2. above but go forwards rather than backwards.

 

Further date related calculations can be performed (e.g. today + 365 days or a future date minus todays date to display the number of days in that period) using the Calculations options found in the Advanced tab when editing a field and using one or more of the functions as defined when clicking the blue ? Help button in the lower left.