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Day formula not working - global team

  • July 21, 2021
  • 5 replies
  • 55 views

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Hi all, thanks in advance for reading.

We have the fairly standard day formula implemented in our Airtable:
IF({Live Date}=BLANK(),"", DATETIME_FORMAT({Live Date},‘ddd’))

However, for just one week, if the time is before 1AM on Live Date, it appears as the day before.

I’m aware a standard fix for this is overriding time zones however that won’t work for us - we’re a global team so the localised time displays are vital, especially as we work in publishing.

So, I’m kind of stumped. Any ideas?

5 replies

kuovonne
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  • Brainy
  • July 21, 2021

Do you have a specific time zone for your headquarters that determines the date? If so, you can set DATETIME_FORMAT() to use that time zone. You can see the formula field reference for more info. Or you can use the Ready-Made Formulas app to help you create the formula.


ScottWorld
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  • Genius
  • July 22, 2021

Also, for a deep dive into time zones and how you could use multiple time zones in a base, check out my sample base & training video here:


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  • Author
  • Inspiring
  • July 29, 2021

Do you have a specific time zone for your headquarters that determines the date? If so, you can set DATETIME_FORMAT() to use that time zone. You can see the formula field reference for more info. Or you can use the Ready-Made Formulas app to help you create the formula.


All of the respective locations need to be able to use AT in their time zone unfortunately, and we can’t identify a ready made that would work!


kuovonne
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  • Brainy
  • July 29, 2021

All of the respective locations need to be able to use AT in their time zone unfortunately, and we can’t identify a ready made that would work!


DATETIME_FORMAT always returns the result for a particular time zone. It cannot adapt to the user’s time zone on the fly. Only date/time fields or formulas that return a date/time object (versus a string) can be shown in the local time zone.

If you have a limited number of time zones in your team, you could have a different formula field for each time zone, but that may be more effort than it is worth.


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  • Author
  • Inspiring
  • July 29, 2021

DATETIME_FORMAT always returns the result for a particular time zone. It cannot adapt to the user’s time zone on the fly. Only date/time fields or formulas that return a date/time object (versus a string) can be shown in the local time zone.

If you have a limited number of time zones in your team, you could have a different formula field for each time zone, but that may be more effort than it is worth.


Makes sense - not sure how to fix this error within Airtable then as it’s literally just one week affected showing incorrect days.