Subtracting StartDate from CurrentDate in Workflow | Experience Community
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MichaelC
Former XM Community Team Member
1 year ago
Question

Subtracting StartDate from CurrentDate in Workflow

  • August 31, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 46 views
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Hi,

In Survey Workflow, I’m trying to create a new variable via

Add task → Data formula → Calculated date fields → Relative date/Current date/time & Fixed value/Response/Start date

It keeps throwing the error "${rm://Field/StartDate} does not match format ISO 8601"

I’ve tried rm://Field/StartDate/c & went down  a convoluted pathway of saving StartDate into a different variable first to force ISO format before doing the calculation - this also didn’t work.

I’m simply creating a variable to determine how long it’s been since they started the survey and send an email reminder if its within a certain time-frame.

 

Thanks in advance,

Brendan

    5 replies

    TusharDalwani
    QPN Level 6 ●●●●●●

    Hi, you can use the code task and JS function to call dates in ISO 8601 format and then perform any calculations that you may want.

    ~Tushar Dalwani
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    Thanks Tushar. I was hoping to avoid JS! Oh well, queue learning curve.

    arunxmarchitect
    Level 4 ●●●●
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    • arunxmarchitect
    • Level 4 ●●●●
    • September 1, 2026

    ​@BrendanStevensonNZ ,

    Please use this in your workflow:

    Qualtrics Pipe as Full ISO-8601 Format

    If you need the current date in a Data Formula task, you can use:

    ${date://CurrentDate/c}

     

    https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/survey-module/editing-questions/piped-text/piped-text-overview/

     

    Arun | Founder, Pirai AI | Qualtrics XM Architect | 🆓 Convert Any Document to Qualtrics QSF: https://platform.piraiai.com | ⚡ Build Qualtrics Dashboard by Conversation: https://piraiai.com/flow
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    Hi Arun. I tried following exactly that workflow data formula + date field example, including variations on the theme (eg. CurrentDate/c), but it keeps giving the error:

    {
      "name": "Actions.ERROR_CODES.SERVICE_ERROR",
      "message": "${rm://Field/StartDate} does not match format ISO 8601",
      "needRetry": false
    }

     

    Most annoying, this shouldn’t be that hard!

    Brendan

    Forum|alt.badge.img+1

    This worked:

    function codeTask() {
        const startDateText = "${rm://Field/StartDate}";
        const startDate = new Date(startDateText);
        const currentDate = new Date();

        if (Number.isNaN(startDate.getTime())) {
            return {
                success: false,
                error: "Invalid StartDate",
                startDateReceived: startDateText
            };
        }

        const elapsedMilliseconds = currentDate.getTime() - startDate.getTime();

        return {
            success: true,
            elapsedHours: Math.floor(elapsedMilliseconds / (1000 * 60 * 60)),
            elapsedDays: Math.floor(elapsedMilliseconds / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24)),
            startDateISO: startDate.toISOString(),
            currentDateISO: currentDate.toISOString()
        };
    }

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