Date and time question types

Last updated: 20 Jun 2022

There are 3 different date and time question types in KoboToolbox: “Date”, “Time” and “Date and time”.

The “Date” question type is for capturing date values, for example when asking for date of birth, etc. In both KoboCollect and Enketo web forms, a calendar-style date picker will be shown for selecting the date.

The “Time” question type is for capturing time values, for example on a question like “At what time do you leave for work?” In both KoboCollect and Enketo, a time picker is shown where a user can select their response.

The third type “Date and time” is for capturing both date and time responses on a single question.

How to set up Date and Time question types

Setting up in formbuilder

Adding “Date”, “Time”, and “Date and Time” questions is simple:

• In the formbuilder, click the button to add a new question

• Type the question text, for example “What is your date of birth?”, then click ADD QUESTION or press ENTER on your keyboard

• Choose the question type

Setting up in XLSForm

To add “Date”, “Time”, and “Date and Time” questions in the XLSForm, use the date, time and datetime question types as shown in the example below:

In XLSForm, you can set up the following:

type	name	label
date	dob	On what date were you born?
time	time	At what time do you you leave for work?
datetime	date_time	At what date and time did the training start?
survey

Appearance of date and time question types in web forms and KoboCollect

Default appearance

Advanced appearances

When adding the “Date” question type in the formbuilder, you can choose from a number of display options (under the question settings). Appearances change the way the question is displayed on web forms and on KoboCollect.

For the “Date” question type, you can control how the default Gregorian calendar displays by choosing between the options “month-year”, “year” and “no-calendar”. Apart from these options, you can also change the calendar style to supported non-Gregorian calendars.

To add appearance values that are not listed on the drop-down list in the formbuilder, choose “other”, and type the appearance value in the text field that appears.

* These options must be entered manually in the formbuilder after “other” is selected.

Adding custom appearances for date questions in XLSForm

You can specify advanced appearances in XLSForm through the appearance column as follows:

Date picker appearances

type	name	label	appearance
date	rains_start	When did the planting rains start?	month-year
date	year_migrate	In which year did you migrate?	year
date	no-calendar_date	Date picker without calendar	no-calendar
survey

Supported non-Gregorian calendars

type	name	label	appearance
date	coptic_date	Date picker with Coptic calendar	coptic
date	ethiopian_date	Date picker with Ethiopian calendar	ethiopian
date	islamic_date	Date picker with Islamic calendar	islamic
date	bikhram_sambat_date	Date picker with Bikram Sambat calendar	bikhram_sambat
date	myanmar_date	Date picker with Myanmar calendar	myanmar
date	persian_date	Date picker with Persian calendar	persian
survey

Using date and time questions in custom logic

When defining custom skip logic (relevant), validation criteria (constraint), and mandatory response criteria (required) using XLSForm code, date values should be included using the date() function, and in the format “YYYY-MM-DD”. For example, if you are creating validation criteria on a date question so that all survey responses must be before the date “April 10th, 2022”, your validation logic will be . < date('2022-04-11').

To use “Time” questions in XLSForm logic, it is always a good idea to convert the raw time values into a number representing time as a fraction of a day, called the decimal time. You can do this using the decimal-time() function. Then, you can compare this value with another decimal time value. For example, if you would like to limit the time entered on a question to only after 12 noon, you can define the following custom validation logic decimal-time(.)>=0.5.

Learn more about related topics:

• Skip logic

• Validation criteria

• Date and time functions (ODK documentation)

You can download the example XLSForm here .