Customizing date formats in Insights

In Insights, you can customize how dates are formatted in your filter and parameter controls. For example, you can specify to format the date in a control as 20-09-2021, or, if you'd rather, as 09-20-2021. You can also specify to shorten the month in your dates (such as September) to three letters (Sep), among other customizations.

Following is a list of tokens you can use to create custom date formats. You can use them in combination with one another to control how dates appear in your controls.

List of supported tokens for formatting dates

Use the following tokens to customize the format of dates in Insights.

Example Description Token
0–6 Numeric representation of a particular day of the week. 0 is Sunday and 6 is Saturday. d
Mo–Su A 2-character textual representation of a particular day of the week. dd
Mon–Sun A 3-character textual representation of a particular day of the week. ddd
Monday–Sunday A textual representation of a particular day of the week. dddd
99 or 21 A 2-digit representation of a year. YY
1999 or 2021 A full, 4-digit numeric representation of a year. YYYY
1–12 Number of a month, without leading zeros. M
1st, 2nd, to 12th Number of a month without leading zeros and with an ordinal suffix. Mo

01–12

Number of a month with leading zeros.

MM

Jan–Dec

A 3-digit textual representation of a month.

MMM

January–December

A full textual representation of a month.

MMMM

1–4

A numeric representation of a quarter.

Q

1st–4th

A numeric representation of a quarter with an ordinal suffix.

Qo

1–31

Day of the month without leading zeros.

D

1st, 2nd, to 31st

Day of the month without leading zeros and an ordinal suffix.

Do

01–31

A 2-digit day of the month with leading zeros.

DD

1–365

Day of the year without leading zeros.

DDD

001–365

Day of the year with leading zeros.

DDDD

1–53

Week of the year without leading zeros.

w

1st–53rd

The week of the year without leading zeros and with an ordinal suffix.

wo

01–53rd

Week of the year with leading zeros.

ww

1–23

Hours, in 24-hour format, without leading zeros.

H

01–23

Hours, in 24-hour format, with leading zeros.

HH

1–12

Hours, in 12-hour format, without leading zeros.

h

01–12

Hours, in 12-hour format, with leading zeros.

hh

0–59

Minutes without leading zeros.

m

00–59

Minutes with leading zeros.

mm

0–59

Seconds without leading zeros.

s

00–59

Seconds with leading zeros.

ss

am or pm

am/pm

a

AM or PM

AM/PM

A

1632184215

Unix timestamp.

X

1632184215000

Millisecond Unix timestamp.

x

The following date types are not supported.

  • Time zones offset with a colon. For example, +07:00.

  • Time zones offset without a colon. For example, +0730.

Preset date formats

To quickly customize dates and times to appear as one of the following example formats, you can use the following Insights preset tokens.

Example Token
8:30 PM LT
8:30:25 PM LTS
August 2 1985 LL
Aug 2 1985 ll
August 2 1985 08:30 PM LLL
Aug 2 1985 08:30 PM lll
Thursday, August 2 1985 08:30 PM LLLL
Thu, Aug 2 1985 08:30 PM llll

Common date formats

Following are three common date examples and their associated token formats for your quick reference.

Example Token Format
Sep 20, 2021 MMM DD, YYYY
20-09-21 5pm DD-MM-YY ha
Monday, September 20, 2021 17:30:15 dddd, MMMM DD, YYYY HH:mm:ss

Adding words to dates

To include words in your date formats, such as the word "of" in 20th of Sep, 2021, enter backslashes (\) before each character in the word. For example, for the 20th of Sep, 2021 date example, use the following token format: Do \o\f MMM, YYYY.

Example: Customizing the date format in a filter control

Use the following procedure to learn how to use date token formats to customize dates for a filter control.

To learn to customize dates for a filter control with data tokens

  1. In an Insights analysis, choose the filter control that you want to customize.

  2. On the filter control, choose the Edit control icon.

  3. On the Edit control page that opens, for Date format, enter the custom date format that you want. Use the tokens listed previously in this topic.

    For example, let's say that you want to customize your dates using the following format: Sep 3rd, 2020 at 5pm. To do so, you can enter the following token format:

    MMM Do, YYYY \a\t ha

    A preview of the date format appears below the input field as you enter each token.

  4. Choose Apply.

    The dates in the control update to the format you specified.