Once you start to unleash the power of Zapier you will more than likely need to schedule a step to run at some point in the future. For example, you might want to set up a cadence of sales emails to follow up leads. You may want to automatically create project tasks to be actioned on a certain day. Or you might want to send a reminder at a set time before a calendar event is due.
All of these things require you to express the date or time that you want something to happen, and this useful guide will give you a head start to show you how to express dates in Zapier so that you can become an automation superhero too!
Using specific dates in Zapier
If you want to specify a step in a zap to happen on a specific date (and/or at a specific time) then you can express that date in a number of ways. Note that some apps use the 24-hour clock and others allow an am/pm qualifier. You can also include the time zone if it’s different to yours.
Here are three ways of defining a specific date in Zapier:
- MM/DD/YYYY HH:MMam/pm [TIMEZONE], e.g. 4/29/2021 10am GMT
- Standard ISO format, e.g. 2021-04-29T14:45
- UNIX timestamp, which is the number of seconds since 1/1/1970, e.g. 1619521823
You can find out more about ISO date formats here, and UNIX timestamps here.
Using relative dates in Zapier
Now although it’s useful to be able to set a specific date in a zap, what’s more powerful are the relative dates you can express.
For example, you may want to process any invoices on a Monday, so if you have an automation related to this then you can schedule it to happen ‘next Monday’.
Or you may want to automatically create a project task but for it always to be due the next day, so you can set the date to be ‘tomorrow’.
You can also use ‘next week Thursday’.
If you want to schedule something to happen in two hours then you can say ‘+2h’.
Or you can set a date to be yesterday by setting it to ‘-1d’.
Zapier has an article on how to adjust dates and times which you can read here.
Relative date and time codes
Using the ‘+2h’ and ‘-1d’ codes is so useful, but you need to know all the codes you can use. Although most are obvious, it’s important to know the codes for ‘minutes’ and ‘months’ otherwise the time conversions may not happen as you expect them to!
- s = seconds
- m = minutes
- h = hours
- d = days
- month = months
- y = years
You can also use multiple codes, for example, if you wanted something to happen in two weeks and one day then you would use ‘+2w +1d’.
Time zones
If you don’t specify a time zone then Zapier uses the time zone from your account. If you check the ‘My Profile’ page then you should have a time zone specified. If it’s empty then choose the right one from the dropdown list.
Zap meta human
There is another useful date/time function in Zapier which returns the current date/time. You can use it to insert the time a zap runs into a field – for display purposes maybe, or to use in another step of the zap.
For this purpose, you can use the function {{zap_meta_human_now}}. It returns a human-readable date/time based on the default time zone in your profile.
There are other functions which return machine-readable timestamps for the current date/time, including {{zap_meta_timestamp}} and {{zap_meta_utc_iso}}.
Whilst these may only be used by more experienced Zapier users, it’s worth knowing they exist as they could come in useful one day.
You can find out more about how to insert the time your zap runs here including other timestamps which are available.
Changing the date format in Zapier
Now that you’ve learned how to express dates in Zapier, you may want to make them look nicer when they’re displayed to a human being, as ISO and UNIX dates aren’t very visually pleasing or user-friendly! Even more normal dates might not be displayed how you’d like, for example, ‘2021-04-29T14:45’ might look nicer as ‘29th April 2021’.
Zapier has an inbuilt Formatter app that can convert dates and times from many different formats to others. You can find out more here or download our cheat sheet which lists all the inbuilt Zapier functions which are brilliant automation shortcuts.
More useful Zapier articles
Once you get started with Zapier there’s so much you can do with it and we have plenty of articles which could spark ideas!
Check out our automation training programme
And finally, if you’re really keen to transform your business using automation, then visit the Solvaa Automation Academy. Our signature training programme, ‘Simple Automation Blueprint: Zero to Hero’ is aimed at anyone who wants to learn the fundamentals of business process automation from the experts – a sure-fire way to recession-proof your business.
It’s an 8-week blended learning course with on-demand videos, templates, resources and weekly group coaching sessions. And it’s more than just a Zapier course (although we do show you how to use Zapier like a pro) as you’ll learn about Process Mapping, Business Process Improvement and Business Process Management too – principles that can be applied to other areas of business too!
Whether you are a complete novice or have been using Zapier for a while, our programme is for you. It’s perfect for individuals and teams in micro, small and medium-sized businesses, including solopreneurs, consultants and freelancers. You’ll have access to our experts and can participate in live calls where you can ask all your burning questions, as well as hands-on workshops to keep you on track with implementing your new skills. We run regular cohorts so there will be an opportunity for everyone to participate.
Our head trainer, Kelly Goss, is a specialist in business systems, process improvement and automation, and one of less than 100 Zapier Certified Experts in the world. Kelly has many years’ experience in optimising systems and processes, and implementing automations for clients and is now passing on her knowledge to students through our trademarked ‘4-Step Solvaa Automation Methodology®‘.
Find out more via our dedicated Solvaa Automation Academy website.
Read more about how our certified experts use Zapier workflow automations to simplify processes and increase efficiency.
Solvaa is a process and automation consultancy specialising in improving sales, operations and financial administration workflows. We help you to simplify and streamline existing processes, integrate your business tools to make data transfer more efficient and automate manual tasks to increase productivity. We are Zapier Certified Experts, Pipedrive Certified Experts and Xero Certified Advisors.
Contact us today to discuss how Solvaa can help you simplify, improve and automate all aspects of your business with Zapier to save you time, reduce costs and keep you agile as you grow.
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