New SharePoint Syntex Content Assembly Date and Time Format Options

There has been a small but significant change to SharePoint Syntex Content assembly to allow you to control the format that a date/time field is expressed in the generated document i.e. DD/MM/YYYYMM-DD-YYYY. Previously dates were expressed in only one format Day MMM DD YYYYY e.g., Thu Feb 03 2022. This update also adds the ability to control the format of the time in your date and time fields so it can be in 12 hour i.e. 05:36 am/pm or 24hr format i.e. 18:05

To facilitate this change to add formatting of date and time changes have been made to the modern template UI in the create/edit modern template page where you would typically create/edit placeholders for the template.

  • Radio button added to specify where time is to be included with the date
  • Date format dropdown with a big list of possible date formatting values – choose the required option.
  • Check box which is displayed if the radio button “Include time” is selected to choose whether 12 or 24hr time format is to be used.

To test all the date formats out so we know what they look like I created a Word Document with all the possible values from the “Date format” dropdown then created a modern (content assembly) template using all these values. You can see in the above image above my template – when I was creating it. Once the template was created I then went to the library and created a document from the DateFormatTesting template and filled in 15 different dates/times so we could see the possible options (see below).

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Here is the generated document – note all of the date formatting options in the red rectangle and the two possible time format options 12/24hr n the blue rectangle.

Summary

This new update is a great new change and is exactly what my clients have been asking for to be able to use different date and time formats for their generated documents. So, this change will go down very well with them. It’s great that there is a large amount of date formatting options so hopefully all the possible date formatting options that you would typically use are in there. If not, I’d recommend leaving a comment here or go to the Syntex Feedback Portal and leave feedback there.

About the Author:

Leon is an experienced SharePoint and Microsoft 365 Consultant. Predominately working with SharePoint but also adept with most apps in the Microsoft 365 suite and Azure.

Reference:

Armston, L. (2022). New SharePoint Syntex Content Assembly Date and Time Format Options. Available at: https://www.leonarmston.com/2022/10/syntex-date-time-format-options/ [Accessed: 27th February 2023].

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