Change Date Format Using Velocity Script and Tokens | Community
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S
Scott-Bush
New Participant
December 22, 2023
Solved

Change Date Format Using Velocity Script and Tokens

  • December 22, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 4665 views

I'm stumped. Been through many articles, even tried ChatGPT to find Velocity Script that changes the date format on a token in an email. I do have an Account field that pulls in the date successfully: {{Company.Renewal Date}}, but in the Mkto standard yyyy-MM-dd, or 2023-12-22. I want it to be MMMM dd, yyyy or December 22, 2023. Velocity script doesn't seem to support Account fields so I had my Sales Ops create a Contact field, {{lead.Account Renewal Date}} to pull in from the Account field. I CAN see this field in the VS objects list. My referring "my.token" in this case is {{my.RenewalDate}} and it "tries" to use the following VS to no avail. 

Appreciate any feedback for fix suggestions.

#set( $dateOptions = { "formats" : { "userin" : "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss", "userout" : "MMMM d, yyyy 'at' HH:mm:ss z" }, "timezones" : { "userin" : "America/New_York", "userout" : "America/New_York" }, "locale" : $date.getLocale() }) #set( $renewalDatelike = $lead.account_renewal_date__c ) #set( $renewalDate = $convert.parseDate( $renewalDatelike, $dateOptions.formats.userin, $dateOptions.locale, $date.getTimeZone().getTimeZone($dateOptions.timezones.userin) ) ) #set( $renewalDate_formatted = $date.format( $dateOptions.formats.userout, $renewalDate, $dateOptions.locale, $date.getTimeZone().getTimeZone($dateOptions.timezones.userout) ) ) $renewalDate_formatted

 

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    Best answer by SanfordWhiteman

    You shouldn’t be using formal notation here:

     

    #set( $myDate = $convert.parseDate(${lead.Your Token Here},'yyyy-MM-dd',$locale,$inTimeZone) )

     

    Always use simple notation unless you’re in an output context:

     

    #set( $myDate = $convert.parseDate($lead.Your_Field_Here,'yyyy-MM-dd',$locale,$inTimeZone) )

     

    Also, it’s not a “token” in Velocity but the Velocity field name, so I changed the snippet accordingly.

    2 replies

    J
    JackSi1
    New Participant
    December 27, 2023

    @scott-bush - I did the same thing for a project, and parsed the date in much smaller code. I don't mind sharing - hope this is useful! (I am not familiar with VS best practices, so I'm hoping I can learn some by sharing my code with others! All I know is that this works 😁)

     

    #set( $inTimeZone = $date.getTimeZone().getTimeZone('America/New_York') ) #set( $outTimeZone = $date.getTimeZone().getTimeZone('America/New_York') ) #set( $locale = $date.getLocale() ) #set( $myDate = $convert.parseDate(${lead.Your Token Here},'yyyy-MM-dd',$locale,$inTimeZone) ) ${date.format('MMMM dd, yyyy',$myDate,$locale,$outTimeZone)}

     

    S
    Scott-BushAuthor
    New Participant
    December 27, 2023

    @jacksi1 That DOES work and it tested fine on both a Person view and List view. I had tried your code before but was using an account field - VS seems to require a lead field so I had Sales Ops create a Contact Field that pulls the Contact.Renewal Date into a lead.Account Renewal Date field. I never re-tested with that change. Thanks for jumping in and big thanks to @sanfordwhiteman for striving with me during the holiday season. Here's the code that works for me...

    #set( $inTimeZone = $date.getTimeZone().getTimeZone('America/New_York') ) #set( $outTimeZone = $date.getTimeZone().getTimeZone('America/New_York') ) #set( $locale = $date.getLocale() ) #set( $myDate = $convert.parseDate(${lead.Account Renewal Date},'yyyy-MM-dd',$locale,$inTimeZone) ) ${date.format('MMMM dd, yyyy',$myDate,$locale,$outTimeZone)}

      

    J
    JackSi1
    New Participant
    December 27, 2023

    Great! I would make sure that it works when you send yourself a full e-mail (not through the 'Send Sample' capability). It should be fine, and the code works for me, but... measure twice cut once right? 😉

      SanfordWhiteman
      SanfordWhiteman
      New Participant
      December 22, 2023

      Please remember to use the Syntax Highlighter (“Insert/Edit Code Sample”) so code is readable. I edited your post this time.

       

      The problem is your formats don’t correctly describe your input and output.

       

      The input is an ISO Date (yyyy-MM-dd) and your desired output doesn’t include the time, so you want:

      #set( $dateOptions = { "formats" : { "userin" : "yyyy-MM-dd", "userout" : "MMMM d, yyyy" }, "timezones" : { "userin" : "America/New_York", "userout" : "America/New_York" }, "locale" : $date.getLocale() })

       

      S
      Scott-BushAuthor
      New Participant
      December 22, 2023

      In a preview test, the output is $renewalDate_formatted - it didn't express the date.

      SanfordWhiteman
      SanfordWhiteman
      New Participant
      December 23, 2023

      Gonna need more info than that. Note you have to use Preview By List to correctly target a lead.

       

      Please show the output of

       

      ${lead}

       

       

      When I set $lead.account_renewal_date__c to a standard ISO date (yyyy-MM-dd) the output looks fine.

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