Time Field Type

I signed up for the duration field beta feature via the link above. Is this something that airtable will have to approve for me to access or should it kick in automatically?

Could you add a field type for Time only? The data I am working with has a column for start time and one for end time, apart from the date. This would be immensely helpful. Thanks!

Also, FYI, my data disappears when I use the date or number format.

+1 for time only field.

Hey everyone! Our latest field type, duration, just got released today. It’s designed to store time durations measured in hours, minutes, seconds, or milliseconds. There are five different formatting options, ranging from h:mm to h:mm:ss.sss. You can also now format the output of computed fields as durations, and use durations in formula fields. Check it out, and let us know what you think!

Hi, I have seen the new duration field feature, but I found that is less practical than a date field to create time tracker or time recorder. Which I suppose it was created for.

With date field with time you can easily create a time tracker:

StartTime column with Data field
EndTime column with Data Field
Length column with the next Formula:
IF( NOT( (DATETIME_DIFF({EndTime}, {StartTime}, ‘minutes’) / 60) > 0) , 0 , (DATETIME_DIFF({EndTime}, {StartTime}, ‘minutes’) / 60))

With this you can create probably the same than with duration field. But the most useful part of date field is that you can click on the cell and click on “Today” button to register the exact time you start or end, so this way you don’t need to type the time on the cell every time you want to register a new start/end time.

So I think that put a simple button which enter the actual time when you click, would be the minimum requirement to change to duration field. Because I can’t really see a big difference between data field and time field. Maybe are the seconds?

This is how I use it.

Would be really useful to have the button “Today” on the phone app.

I too would appreciate a Time field (beginning and end), not only to calculate duration, but with outlook integration, it would be a total game changer to have certain things appear on your calendar during the right time frame!!!

+1 from me for dedicated Time field type holding only a time-of-day, without date and allowing for easy calculation of durations.

+100 for either a CURRENT_TIME function that is persistent, or a button (or key-command, a la Google Sheets) to insert a timestamp. We need this SO badly. Manual entry of date/time is prohibitively laborious.

Or, just a simple WHEN function… Being able to calculate when X field last equaled Y value would be MAJOR.

To be fair, I’d missed until yesterday, that you could double-click within a Date field to pop-up the today button. I’d always assumed you had to start typing the date… That said, though this “discovery” eases things for us a bit, it’s by no means discoverable. We’d still prefer the option of checkbox-for-timestamp, or an in-line “Now” button (maybe even one near full-cell, that appears upon roll-over/hover).

Or hell… A new “Button” field type, that could trigger any number of formulas/scripts. :winking_face: Buttons within a grid layout make natural sense.

If your cursor is selected into a date field (with or without a time), then use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+; (or Cmd+; on a Mac) it’ll automatically put in the current date/time.

Amaze. Thanks Katherine! :raised_hands:

+1 for a time field. Organising timetable for 85 classes over a 12 week university semester and I can’t put in the time that each class starts :unamused:

I would like to use that time field to build my personal flying data base.

I’d also appreciate either a standalone “Time” field without a date, OR a formatting switch on the “Duration” field to accommodate time of day display, to be able to store data such as ‘8:00 AM’ or ‘5:00 PM’. The duration field can’t really work for this use case for us, as we don’t use military time and use the AM/PM meridiem designators when entering data. We have recurring weekly time slots, not attached to any particular date, and would like to be able to store these natively and enter them as seamlessly as all our other fields.

I’m getting an error when I try and use that formula. This is exactly what I need.

Make sure you have the right name selector.

Still waiting for this feature.

Also make sure you correct the quotes used when copying the formula. The forum appears to mess them up at times, turning some straight quotes into curly quotes. Straight quotes work for formulas; curly quotes don’t.

Would love this feature. Definitely helps.

I would also like to have a “Time” field type separate from Date.

Wow this thread is so long… Since 2016… you think they would listen to their community…

I wouldn’t assume that they’re not listening. Prioritizing software updates is a lot more complicated than many would assume, and there’s a lot that we don’t know about what’s happening behind the scenes. From what I’ve seen elsewhere, it helps the folks at Airtable to get details about specific use cases where Feature X could potentially be used. If you could describe how you would specifically use (and benefit from) something like this, it would carry a lot more weight.

Here’s my use case for the need for a separate time field. I need to be able to calculate the total and subtotal of time duration across sets of records and cannot for the life of me figure out how to do this. While I can get a Min Date and Max Date in summary fields, I can’t get a Min Time or Max Time to show up in subtotal or total fields, nor can I use or create them in a Pivot Table. Help!!

Hi @Peter_Nelson2 and welcome to our community! :slightly_smiling_face:

Just curious whether a combination of Date (without a time field) and Duration field types would be suitable (or at least a work-around) for your use case…?

You can use a formula like {End Time} - {Start time} to compare durations.