[From Wrike] Using the NOW() function to reference today 📅
Hi Community,
My name is Mobeen, and I’m a Senior Technical Services Consultant on Wrike’s Professional Services team. Today I would like to help you explore the NOW() function and some of its use cases. Hopefully, this will you manage your work better!
What is the NOW() function?
The NOW function helps you reference today’s date in a dynamic way. Another way you can think of this could be “Today” or “Currentday”. In Wrike Analyze, you can find NOW() by moving over to the function tab and jumping to the “Date & Time” section:
How to use NOW()?
To use NOW(), you need to add an input parameter. This parameter must be a date type field, and this controls the desired output level from today’s date, i.e., day, month, year, or time. You can select the output level by clicking on the field in your formula and selecting the desired grouping:
In my screenshot above, the formula: NOW (Days in Project Start Date) with the grouping of “Days” selected, will give me today’s date.
When can I use NOW()?
NOW() must be used in conjunction with a DDIFF (date difference). There are plenty of use cases for this, including:
· Days left in task duration
· Days task has been overdue for
· Days task has been active since
· Calculating SLA/OLA limits
· Analyzing team performance and efficiency
· Days since the last change
...and many more!
Let’s look at some examples:
Example 1 – How many days do I have left to complete my task?
Here is a look at my table which displays the difference between the due date and today, today being dynamic every day.
The positive values show how many days I still have pending until the due date, and the negative values help me understand if I have been overdue already for a number of days. Let’s look at the formula:
It is a simple date difference between “Task Due Date” and “NOW”, NOW being the current date.
Example 2 – How many days since the request was received?
In a fast-paced environment, quick resolutions are critical. If you have SLAs to follow or simply want to see how many days it has been since a new request came in, this could be a good example for you. Here is a look at the final table:
Here, again, positive values show how many days it has been since the start date and negative values show how many days further to the start date of a task. Let’s check the formula:
Did you notice I had to change the order of my fields inside the DDIFF compared to the previous example? The order represents how the two dates are subtracted. Since I want to calculate the number of days it has been since the start date as positive values, I moved the NOW function as the first input to my DDIFF.
Did you find this helpful? Do you have different use cases for NOW()? Let us know below how you are using it in your analytic boards. See you in the next Analyze post!
Mobeen Tahir Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Узнайте о самых популярных функциях Wrike и советах по его использованию
Mobeen Tahir Wrike Team member Узнайте о самых популярных функциях Wrike и советах по его использованию
Hi Mobeen,
Thank you a lot for this useful article related to Analyze and NOW function! I have one questions if I may.
I wanted to see when was the last and only last change in any of the task within the project (to see the latest activeness). Is this possible? So far I created the below formula, but the numbers of days are really high and I think they might not capture only ONE, LAST change from all task status changes:
DDIFF (NOW ([Days in Task Status Change History Previous Change Date]),[Days in Task Status Change History Previous Change Date])
Kind regards,
Mateusz
Hello Mateusz Pawlak,
Thank you for your feedback and I am glad you found the article useful!
Your use case is quite interesting and a good use of the NOW function to calculate that. First thing I'd like to mention is, it would be better to use the field "Task Status Change History Change Date" instead of the field you used ""Task Status Change History Previous Change Date". The latter gives the date of a previous change and since we want to calculate the latest change, we should use the first field I mentioned. You can find more information on these fields here: Wrike Analyze - Available Data
To calculate the time difference between the the status change and the current time, you are on the correct path. The base formula you have is correct (by replacing the field as I mentioned above) and your use of NOW is set up correctly. But to make sure we only capture the latest change we would need to define that in the formula with the help of multi-pass aggregation. Your formula would look like this:
To explain, I am using the MIN function (minimum) to group all my status change dates and capturing only the smallest one. The smallest value should represent the latest status change that happened. If you are using a pivot table with task names as one of your columns of the table, this will automatically run one by one for each task and capture the minimum value of the date difference between NOW and Task Status Change History Change Date.
Please let me know if this formula works for you, or if you have any more questions.
Thank you.
Mobeen Tahir Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Узнайте о самых популярных функциях Wrike и советах по его использованию
Mobeen Tahir Wrike Team member Узнайте о самых популярных функциях Wrike и советах по его использованию
Hi All,
I used the following formula to find the number of days past due date. DDIFF([Days in Project Due Date],NOW([Days in Project Due Date]))
For the first few times it was showing an error to populate the data with error message it could not populate for live data.
Now the data is populated but is showing wrong values. could you help to tweak the formula to get the right values.
Or kindly advice how to achieve the required data in analyse.
Thank you very much for your support
Hi Nishanth Joseph, welcome to Wrike forums 🙂
I've now asked our Wrike Analyze experts from the Support team to reach out to you about this, they should be in touch soon.
Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with and be sure to check out our New to Community forum 🙌
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Hi! Can the now function be used to set the start date? I have a Blueprint for a project where some tasks need to be started as soon as the project is created, but I don't want the entire project to be based on today's date.
Hi Amber Vollmar, welcome to the Community 👋
I've asked our Support team to reach out to you about this 👍 Please feel free to post the answer here after you speak with them, and let me know if you need help with anything else!
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover