web
You’re offline. This is a read only version of the page.
close
Skip to main content
Community site session details

Community site session details

Session Id :
Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / Date Time format of Da...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

(1) ShareShare
ReportReport
Posted on by Antbutcher 387

Hi Guys, 

Wonder if anyone can help me with this query, I understand that as of CRM 2016 we cannot change fields to show a long date format, we are limited to dates appearing in short date format based on the users personal options. It appears the long date format is only used as tooltip text. 

We have multiple users worldwide accessing our CRM system and the dates are always shown in the format relevant to the local user however, we have a situation where we send an email via a workflow which in the email body references a CRM datetime field, it appears it isnt possible to format the date in the workflow and as it cannot determine the user you are sending the email too the date appears to send in the format of the user who created the workflow. 

I appreciate I can create a custom workflow to format the date approprtiately however, wondered if there is something obvious I am missing as it seems to be quite a simple ommision on Microsofts part from OOB functionality.

*This post is locked for comments

I have the same question (0)
  • Verified answer
    TheMarkChristie Profile Picture
    TheMarkChristie 10,328 Moderator on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    Hi Anthony

    There is nothing at the moment, Even in 8.2 there is still the same issue. I would stick it on the ideas portal and hopefully it will come back

  • Antbutcher Profile Picture
    Antbutcher 387 on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    Hi Mark,

    Thanks for the reply, I will add it the portal, thought it was an oversight on my part  it is causing some confusion to our users, but creating a custom workflow or running javascript on save of the record to store the date in long format in a text field just seems over kill for something relativly straight forward.

  • Patrick Friedrich Profile Picture
    Patrick Friedrich 395 on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    Is there any update available in the coming 9.0 release?

  • Suggested answer
    Antbutcher Profile Picture
    Antbutcher 387 on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    I have not seen anything Patrick in training videos for V9, but we are not using that yet so cannot confirm officially!   We ended up solving this problem by running all our workflows as a user with their personal formatting options set to show date in dd-MMM-yyyy format to avoid the confusion.

  • Patrick Friedrich Profile Picture
    Patrick Friedrich 395 on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    Thanks for the workaround, but that means to convert the workflow to a realtime workflow to configure that it will be executed as the user who made changes to the record, right?

    Any dependencies with that? Normally only performance issues could appear?

    Thanks

    Patrick

  • Suggested answer
    Antbutcher Profile Picture
    Antbutcher 387 on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    Hi Patrick not at all, you can still use background processes all you need to do is change the owner. To do this just click the administration tab on the deactivated workflow change and once done re-activate. One thing to note is in order to use "dd-MMM-yyyy"  e.g. 08-Dec-2017 format the users personal options have to be set to US.

    For some reason this date format is not an available when set to UK.

  • Patrick Friedrich Profile Picture
    Patrick Friedrich 395 on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    Alright, but that´s not what I was looking for. We have one environment for different countries. So that it depends on the user who triggers the workflow. And his/her personal settings are determening which formatting should be displayed in the email. And for this I guess it´s mandatory to convert to workflow to real-time because you cannot choose the option in a background workflow. It´s called "the user who made changes to the record".

  • Suggested answer
    Antbutcher Profile Picture
    Antbutcher 387 on at
    RE: Date Time format of Date field sent in email by CRM Workflow

    Apologies for the late reply Patrick, I have been away for a few days. I assume you have solved it now anyway.

    I may have misinterpreted your original question. To answer the question above regarding real time workflows I haven't noticed too much of a performance degradation using them but I do only use them where it makes sense.

    For example a user cannot move on until some action is performed, for things like workflow emails I always use background processes as it doesn't make sense to make the user wait.

    Your right though that would be your only OOB method to run the workflow as a specific user. If all you are wanting to do is format a date in an email workflow then I would use a background process with the running user set with a universal date format. For example 17-Dec-2017 so it is clear to all users.

    However, it sounds you may want to format other things to, therefore I would use a custom workflow. Simply access the fields in the plugin, format them and return the values you want to use in the email template as output parameters so they are available to select in the email.

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

Quick Links

Responsible AI policies

As AI tools become more common, we’re introducing a Responsible AI Use…

Abhilash Warrier – Community Spotlight

We are honored to recognize Abhilash Warrier as our Community Spotlight honoree for…

Congratulations to the September Top 10 Community Leaders!

These are the community rock stars!

Leaderboard > 🔒一 Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

#1
Community Member Profile Picture

Community Member 2

#1
HR-09070029-0 Profile Picture

HR-09070029-0 2

#1
UllrSki Profile Picture

UllrSki 2

Last 30 days Overall leaderboard

Featured topics

Product updates

Dynamics 365 release plans