Dates & Time Zones

Learn how Noloco handles date fields and time zones

In Noloco there are three ways to set up a date field, whether it's coming from Noloco, Airtable, Google Sheets, Xano, or anywhere else.

When you import data from an external source, the date field is initially set to the Default format. This preserves the original format of the date as it was in the data source. You can keep this format or change it to one of the other options (Date, Date & Time, or Date & Time with consistent time zone).

If you need to change the Date field option, click on the date field and select the desired option from the dropdown menu.

Date Fields

The Date field is a field that only represents a date, with no time. The fields don't have a timezone, because a date is a date regardless of where you are in the world. For example, a birthday on May 12th is always May 12th. It's not May 11th at 18:00 just because you're in San Fransico. You should use these fields for dates of birth, all day events, like a conference start and end date, a project kickoff date, etc.

When used in a form in your app, the user will see a date picker without the ability to set the time.

Date & Time

A date and time field lets you save a date and a time. The app user will always be shown the date and time in their local timezone. So if someone chooses 12 June 2023 at 2 pm while in New York, someone in Dublin would see 12 June 2023 at 7 pm (because of the 5-hour time difference). This is usually how you want to store dates and times, as it allows your users to always pick the correct time relative to them.

Date and Time Fields with consistent time zone

There are times when you want to choose the date and time with a consistent timezone, usually if the time shown needs to be shown in local time. For example, when you are looking at flight information, usually take-off and landing are in local times (local to the airport). However, something like a meeting time should rarely be shown in this format, particularly if participants can join the meeting remotely from anywhere in the world. To choose a field like this, enable Use a consistent time zone. This will always display your dates in the GMT / UTC timezone regardless of the user's location. To use the same example as above, if someone chooses 12 June 2023 at 2 pm while in New York, someone in Dublin would also see 12 June 2023 at 2 pm (despite the 5 hours time difference)

Date Formats

When you're in the app your dates and times will always be formatted according to your browser's language settings (your locale). This allows Noloco to personalize your dates to your preference. For example, May 12th 2023 will be shown as:

• 05/12/2023 when in the USA

• 12/05/2023 when in Ireland or the UK

• 12.05.2023 when in Germany

• ... etc.

Similarly, times are also localized to your own locale:

• 05:15 PM when in the USA

• 17:15 when in Europe (etc..)

You don't need to adjust these formats as they will always be formatted in the user's preferred format (according to their own language settings).