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Kuovonne's Guide to Scripting in Airtable
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    • Kuovonne's Guide to Scripting in Airtable
      • So you want to learn Scripting?
        • Do you just want working code?
        • Can AI write my script?
        • Where do I start?
        • Kuovonne's coding journey (part 1)
      • Free Scripts
        • Formatted Timestamp
        • Interface Sidesheet Url
        • 2nd & 4th Monday of each Month
        • Copy value from one field to another
      • Examples of designing coding solutions
        • Tossed Salad Junction Records
      • Object IDs in Airtable
      • Automation Scripts
        • Converting a script to run as an automation
        • Automation script limits
      • Developing Generic Coding Skills
        • Traits of Quality Code
        • Reading Documentation
        • Using Variables
        • Debugging & Testing
        • Not Time Wastes
        • Comments in Code
      • Possible future topics
Kuovonne's Guide to Scripting in Airtable
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Formatted Timestamp
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Formatted Timestamp

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Inspiration

A user
posted
⁠
on the Airtable community forums that he wanted to include a nicely formatted date in a weekly email. Although he could get the expected trigger time for the automation, the result was an ugly ISO string.

Discussion

To get the current date and time in JavaScript, create a new date object.
const now = new Date()
However this date object will not be formatted for humans to read.
Fortunately, you can format date objects for human consumption with toLocaleString().
In order to format the timestamp, you need to specify several options
timezone. You can see a list of
timezones
⁠
here.
date style. If you want to include the date, you can choose from the full, long, medium, or short format.
time style. If you want to include the time, you can choose from the full, long, medium, or short format.
These options will give a short date and time in New York timezone, such as 4/26/23, 6:53 PM.
const options = {
timeZone: "America/New_York",
dateStyle: "short",
timeStyle: "short",
}
If you want only the date without the time, leave out the timeStyle.
const options = {
timeZone: "America/New_York",
dateStyle: "short",
}
You also need the locale. The locale indicates the order of elements in the date (MM/DD/YYYY versus DD/MM/YYYY) and the language. I usually use en-us because I am located in the United States. If you are located elsewhere, you can see a list of locales
here
⁠
.
const locale = "en-us"
Now that you have your locale and options, you can get the formatted date/time.
const formattedDateTime = now.toLocaleString(locale, options)
Finally, have the script output the formatted date/time for use in a future automation step.
output.set("automationTimeFormatted", formattedDateTime)
Test the script to see the results.
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image.png
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Then use the results in a future automation action.
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image.png
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Here is the full script
const now = new Date()
const locale = "en-us"
const options = {
timeZone: "America/New_York",
dateStyle: "short",
timeStyle: "short",
}
const formattedDateTime = now.toLocaleString(locale, options)
output.set("automationTimeFormatted", formattedDateTime)
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