Display Captured Dates in Any Format with Gravity Forms

• September 6, 2023: Updated to support &comma as a replacement for , for commas for better compatibility with Populate Anything's LMTs.

• November 5, 2021: Fixed issue where original date format was not accounted for when parsing date for formatting.

1. Overview
2. Using the Plugin
   1. Prerequisites
   2. Merge Tag Modifier
3. Use Cases
   1. Event Reminders
   2. Append Date to Unique IDs
   3. Create Gravity Forms Conditional Merge Tags using Shortcodes
   4. Gotchas
4. Summary
5. Related Content

Overview

Gravity Forms makes it easy to capture dates in form entries. Simply add a Date field to the form, and your user can easily select a date from the built-in datepicker.

Displaying those dates in Confirmations and Notifications is equally easy. Insert the Date field’s merge tag and it will automatically turn into the submitted date when the Confirmation displays or the Notification is sent. Further down, we’ll also cover how to use Gravity Forms’ date merge tags to populate your entries dynamically.

The format that outputs when using a date field’s merge tag is determined by the Date Format setting. It defaults to mm/dd/yyyy and offers a handful of variations, such as dd-mm-yyyy many others.

While versatile, I often find that I want more control over the date formatting, especially when using dates in notifications.

This plugin adds the ability to use PHP’s date format to format the output of date merge tags. This adds granular and flexible options for displaying dates to your users.

Using the Plugin

Prerequisites

Confirm that you have Gravity Forms installed and activated and that you’ve installed and activated the plugin.

Merge Tag Modifier

With the plugin installed, first insert the merge tag for a Date field anywhere that it’s supported. To format the date, add a merge tag modifier with the appropriate date formatting characters.

Refer to the PHP docs for how to format the characters to get the desired outcome. Below are some examples of a couple of different modifiers and their formats.

Use Cases

There’s a number of different ways formatted dates can be used in your forms, and we want to highlight a couple of use cases.

Event Reminders

We tend to remember events better if we can associate them with a day of the week. Oh, the webinar? That’s next Wednesday! When is Lalya’s race? Friday the 13th. 😱

We made a Webinar Signup form for our GF Inventory demo. The user selects the date they’d like to attend from an inline datepicker. On the confirmation, we format the date to include the day of the week so it’ll stick better in their memory.

Want to send timed event reminders? Gravity Forms Notification Scheduler allows you to send custom messages before and after date-based fields submitted on a form. If you’re using a form for an event, appointment, or reservation, you can schedule custom notifications (personalized with merge tags, of course) to your users in the days leading up to the event as a reminder, or after.

For example, send personalized reminders for an upcoming reservation with helpful tips on how to prepare or what’s on the menu. Or send a feedback request a few days after the submitted date.

Gravity Forms Notification Scheduler also allows you to send notifications based on chosen dates, after any notification event, recurring forever, or ended after some time. Learn more about Gravity Forms Notification Scheduler!

Append Date to Unique IDs

Using this plugin, you can format the date merge anywhere that it is supported, which includes the prefix or suffix of unique IDs generating with GF Unique ID. For example, say you want to use a sequential ID that is prepended with the current date in yyyymmdd format. First, add a Date field to the form and use the {date_mdy} merge tag in its Default Value to populate the current date into the field when the form is loaded.

Then, add the merge tag for that Date field into the Prefix setting for your Unique ID field. Add the following merge tag modifier to format the date in yyyymmdd format: {Date:1:Ymd}.

Then an entry is submitted, the date will be prepended to the unique ID.

Create Gravity Forms Conditional Merge Tags using Shortcodes

You can use Gravity Forms Conditional Merge Tags with Gravity Forms Conditional Shortcode so that different content can be displayed in Confirmations and Notifications based on the values in an entry. You can take this one step further with this plugin by altering the displayed date format depending on the user’s country.

[gravityforms action="conditional" merge_tag="{Country:1}" condition="is" value="United States"]
Interview Date: {Interview Date:2:d-m-Y}
[/gravityforms]

[gravityforms action="conditional" merge_tag="{Country:1}" condition="isnot" value="United States"]
Interview Date: {Interview Date:2:m-d-Y}
[/gravityforms]

Gotchas

Commas are a reserved character in Gravity Forms merge tags. If you need to use a comma in your date format, you can escape it with its HTML entity: ,. For example:

{Webinar Date:2:l, F jS} → Wednesday, September 15th

Summary

This is a simple plugin that gives you the ability to have full control over the formatting of the date merge tag. Let us know how you’re using it. If you have ideas on how we can improve it, please let us know!

Related Content

Use Populate Anything to capture dates in any format in real time

With Live Merge Tags, this merge tag provides a powerful way to show and capture dates in any format you need live on the form. This is particularly useful in HTML fields.

Populate and format Dates and Times based on user input, in real time

Populate and format dates and times live while the user is filling out the form. This is perfect for calculating delivery or expiration dates or indicating a return date and time for your rentals. Populate Dates also includes full formatting support (much like this plugin) so you can populate dates in the exact format you want.

This Date & Time Calculator can help with complex date and time calculations based on input

Calculate the minutes, hours, days, years between two dates or times. Need to determine how many week or weekend days are between two dates? Or deduce the user’s age based on their birthdate? Date Time Calculator has you covered!

Limit the Dates a user can select using Limit Dates

If you’re using a datepicker, rarely do you want to let the user select just any date. Use Limit Dates to specify your date requirements and the datepicker will be restricted automatically. Limit Dates automatically integrates with GF Inventory to block dates that are fully booked.