Manipulate a date

The Manipulate a date helper allows you to change a date by either adding or subtracting time units (years, days, hours and minutes), typically used for scheduling and record-keeping purposes.

The helper takes a date or timestamp and the amount of time (in years, days, hours or minutes) to add or subtract. It returns the updated date or timestamp.

Common use-cases

• Adjusting a time to a different timezone

• Setting a due date

• Search for items from a certain timeframe (e.g., last week, last month, etc.)

Manipulate a date options

The table presents various options for manipulating a date using the Manipulate a date tool.

It's based on an initial input set as Sunday, February 14th, 2010, at 3:25:50 pm:

Add/Subtract	Time unit	Amount of time	Example Output
Subtract	Days	5	2010-02-08T22:00:00.000Z
Add	Hours	23	2010-02-15T12:25:50.000Z
Subtract	Years	5	2005-02-14T13:25:50.000Z
Subtract	Years	7	2016-05-28T11:10:16.000Z

Pro tip Time outputs in Ply will always appear in ISO format. To reset to original format, see the Format a date helper.

Example 1 - Creating a due date

Let’s say you want to create a feature that creates a task due in a week:

Task	Current day
Send email to Ben	March 14, 2023

Step-by-step instructions

You can create a new date seven days from today using the Manipulate a date helper:

1. Add the action Manipulate a date

2. Map the current date into the date input (found under Runtime & user attributes).

3. Choose Add (Add/Subtract), Days (Time unit), and 7 (Amount of time).

4. The helper will return the date exactly one week from today, which can be used as the due date for your tasks:

Task	Current day	Due date
Send email to Ben	March 14, 2023	March 21, 2023

Example 2 - Displaying calendar events within a timeframe

Let’s say you want to present your meetings and calls from the last 7 days. Use Search events in your calendar app (e.g. Google Calendar) to get a list of events in a user-defined timeframe. The action requires From date and To date values.

Step-by-step instructions

You can use the current time as the To date and run a Manipulate a date action to create the From date:

1. Add the Manipulate a date action.

   1. Map the current date into the date input (found under Runtime & user attributes).

   2. Choose Subtract, Days, and 7.

The output is the date seven days ago, and can be used as the beginning of the timeframe.

1. Add the Search events action.

   1. Choose the calendar you want to search the events in.

   2. Map the previous step’s output in to From date.

   3. Map the current date in to To date (found under Runtime & user attributes).

The output of this step includes all the events from the past seven days.