Find the Earliest Date Across Multiple Date Fields

When a record has multiple date fields, sometimes you’d like to know which date is the earliest.

In the below example, each record is a social post that has different live dates for different channels. I’d like to know the earliest live date across all three channels. I could do this in a formula, but the ‘LIVE DATE’ field is also used by other teams, so I’d rather calculate the date with the below script (plus the awesome batchAnd script to do this for more than 50 records):

Example Base Here

 //  Add all the date fields you need here  

let fields = ['Instagram Date','IG Stories Date','Facebook Date','LIVE DATE']



// Let Airtable know which table and views records you want to use

let table = base.getTable("Content");

let view = table.getView('All');

let query = await view.selectRecordsAsync({fields:fields});

let records = query.records;



// Find the Earliest Date

let dates = records.map( c => fields.map( x => (c.getCellValue(x) != null && x != 'LIVE DATE') ? Date.parse(c.getCellValue(x)) : null).filter(x => x));

let minRaw = dates.map( c => c.reduce((acc,cur) => Math.min(acc,cur)));

let min = minRaw.map( c => new Date(c).toISOString())

let update = min.map( (c,i) => ({id:records[i].id,fields:{

    'LIVE DATE': c

}}));



/*

    Use this function to perform 'Update', 'Create', or 'Delete'

    async actions on batches of records that could potentially 

    more than 50 records.



    ::PARAMETERS::

    action = string; one of 3 values:

           - 'Update' to call table.updateRecordsAsync()

           - 'Create' to call table.createRecordsAsync()

           - 'Delete' to call table.deleteRecordsAsync()



    table = Table; the table the action will be performed in



    records = Array; the records to perform the action on

            - Ensure the record objects inside the array are

            formatted properly for the action you wish to

            perform



    ::RETURNS::

    recordsActedOn = integer, array of recordId's, or null; 

                   - Update Success: integer; the number of records processed by the function

                   - Delete Success: integer; the number of records processed by the function

                   - Create Success: array; the id strings of records created by the function

                   - Failure: null;

*/

async function batchAnd(action, table, records) {

    let recordsActedOn;



    switch (action) {

        case 'Update':

            recordsActedOn = records.length;

            while (records.length > 0) {

                await table.updateRecordsAsync(records.slice(0, 50));

                records = records.slice(50);

            };

            break;

        

        case 'Create':

            recordsActedOn = [];

            while (records.length > 0) {

                let recordIds = await table.createRecordsAsync(records.slice(0, 50));

                recordsActedOn.push(...recordIds)

                records = records.slice(50);

            };

            break;



        case 'Delete':

            recordsActedOn = records.length;

            while (records.length > 0) {

                await table.deleteRecordsAsync(records.slice(0, 50));

                records = records.slice(50);

            }

            break;



        default:

            output.markdown(`**Please use either 'Update', 'Create', or 'Delete' as the "action" parameter for the "batchAnd()" function.**`);

            recordsActedOn = null;

    }

    return recordsActedOn;

}





// Update the records

await batchAnd('Update',table,update)