(Date Property) is Less/More Than 0 or 1 Day Ago/From Now

[NoelleStorey]

I have a lot of workflows that are triggered based on date properties. I want to know the best way to format the triggers for the following scenarios:

- (date property) is yesterday

- (date property) is today 

- (date property) is tomorrow 

So I want to know the best way to trigger my workflows for the above scenarios. 

Lets say my date property is "lease start date". 

How can I get my workflows to trigger in the following scenarios:

- Lease start date is yesterday: Should I set the triggers as Lease Start Date is more than 1 day ago? Less than 1 day ago? More than 0 days ago??

- Lease start date is today: Should I set the triggers as Lease Start Date is less than 0 days ago? More than 0 days ago? Less than 0 days from now??

- Lease start date is tomorrow: Should I set the triggers as Lease Start Date is more than 0 days from now? Less than 1 day from now? More than 1 day from now?? 

I would love some clear cut guidelines on these scenarios. Also, does it cut off at midnight? So if my lease start is 1/8/2025, will this enroll in my workflow for lease start is tomorrow at any time (12am-11:59pm) during the day on 1/7/2025?

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @NoelleStorey,

I did some research on this because I wanted to make sure that the answer given is 100% correct. In lists, workflows, and reports, the below filters were confirmed with a HubSpot technical consultant:

Yesterday: is less than 1 days ago AND is more than 0 days ago
Today (until now): is less than 0 days ago
Today (entire day): is less than 0 days ago OR less than 1 day from now
Tomorrow: is more than 1 day from now AND is less than 2 days from now

(On index pages, date filters behave differently.)

Best regards!

[NoelleStorey]

Hi Karsten, I appreciate your help!

Quick question about your filters for today (entire day) and tomorrow:

I tested an example using a ticket called Hendrix, where the "Lease Start Date" property is tomorrow, 1/24/2025 (I am testing this on 1/23/2025 at 9:30am MST). The "Lease Start Date" property is just a date property, not a date/time property. I used the filters you suggested but it shows the ticket would not meet the enrollment criteria:

I believe the filters you gave me may be for a date that is two days from now, rather than tomorrow (1/25/2025 in my case). 

I changed the filters to instead be: (Lease Start Date) is less than 1 day from now AND (Lease Start Date) is more than 0 days from now which shows that Hendrix meets the enrollment criteria (lease start date is 1/24/2025). 

I then tried removing the second half of that criteria ([Lease Start Date] is more than 0 days from now) and only use (Lease Start Date) is less than 1 day from now to see if that criteria worked on its own to capture a date that is tomorrow. 

The system showed me that Hendrix would still meet the enrollment criteria when only (Lease Start Date) is less than 1 day from now is the set criteria. So it appears that you only need this filter criteria when you're wanting to include only "tomorrow" dates, and the (Lease Start Date) is more than 0 days ago is not necessary. Please let me know if you see any errors with this. See below:

I then wanted to test the criteria for capturing only a "today" date. You said that in order to capture today (entire day), the criteria should be is less than 0 days ago OR is less than 1 day from now.

I used a ticket called "Boots" which has a Lease Start Date of today, 1/23/2025. I tested this ticket using the criteria (Lease Start Date) is less than 0 days ago, which shows that Boots would be successfully enrolled:

I then tested the ticket using the other enrollment criteria you suggested: (Lease Start Date) is less than 1 day from now, which shows that the ticket would not meet the enrollment criteria with a lease start date of today (1/23/2025), which makes sense given my earlier explanation that this enrollment criteria works for tickets with a "tomorrow" date property:

This process seems a bit confusing and could be challenging for users to get right consistently. I’m curious why workflows don’t offer triggers similar to those in the contacts or tickets data tables, where we could use a filter like “Lease Start Date” is yesterday, today, tomorrow, etc. This type of date property filter would make it much easier to enroll tickets automatically based on dynamic dates.

Additionally, it would be incredibly helpful to have an option to specify an exact number of days “from now” or “ago.” For example, if I want tickets to enroll when the "Lease Start Date" is 30 days away, it seems unnecessary to configure it as "less than 31 days from now" and "more than 29 days from now" instead of simply "is 30 days from now."
I am very curious to get your thoughts and feedback about this.

Thank you for your time and assistance!

[karstenkoehler]

@NoelleStorey before I work through this, quick question, what exactly do you want to filter for – do you want to filter for tickets where a date is either today or tomorrow? The filters in your first screenshot differ from what I suggested for today (entire day).

[NoelleStorey]

@karstenkoehler I have a lot of different workflows that I want triggered when the lease start date is today, tomorrow, 3 days from now, 7 days from now, 30 days from now, etc.

I also have workflows that I want triggered when lease start date is today AND any time in the past, or just today, or just yesterday, etc. 

So that's why I am hoping to get some standard logic that I could apply when looking through all of my date property workflows to ensure they are triggering the tickets that I want. 
The first screenshot shows the test I tried for a ticket that has a lease start date of tomorrow (1/24/2025) and I wanted to see if it would enroll when I used your suggested filters for "Tomorrow" (is more than 1 day from now AND is less than 2 days from now). However, the test shows that the ticket would not enroll.

[karstenkoehler]

@NoelleStorey could you confirm your account time zone please? https://knowledge.hubspot.com/account-management/change-your-language-and-region-settings#customize-...

I'm not able to reproduce what you're experiencing, see below:

[NoelleStorey]

@karstenkoehler this is the time zone:

[karstenkoehler]

@NoelleStorey time zones are not my forte but it looks like that's different from your own and I could see how that causes the discrepancy.

[NoelleStorey]

@karstenkoehler 

I found an old workflow that I created about a year ago that uses the date property: "Original Lease End Date". The goal was to get tickets to enroll when the Original Lease End Date is 3 days from now. 
HubSpot required all workflows with these date properties/filters to select a time zone, either "Account" or "UTC", but I remember there being a notice that using UTC would be the better option, so that's how I structured all of these workflows. See the examples below:

It appears now that HubSpot suggests that any workflows created in the past with either "UTC" or "Account" timezone selected, should be updated.
When I click "Update", I am no longer given the option to select either UTC or Account time zone:

Any new workflows created with this date property criteria now do not give an option to select either UTC or Account, as you can see in the screenshots from my past messages. So it seems like HubSpot wanted to simplify this whole process by removing those two options. 

[CSteinbach]

HubSpot uses midnight as the cutoff for date-based properties. These triggers operate on relative date logic, which is crucial for workflows relying on dynamic dates. This setup will allow you to configure workflows accurately for "yesterday," "today," and "tomorrow" scenarios while ensuring correct enrollments based on the intended date property.

1. Lease Start Date is Yesterday

Trigger:

• [Date Property] is less than 2 days ago AND [Date Property] is more than 0 days ago.

Explanation:

• "Less than 2 days ago" ensures you capture dates within the last 48 hours.
• "More than 0 days ago" excludes today’s date and focuses on events specifically from yesterday.

---

2. Lease Start Date is Today

Trigger:

• [Date Property] is less than 1 day ago AND [Date Property] is more than -1 day from now.

Explanation:

• "Less than 1 day ago" captures today and excludes future dates.
• "More than -1 day from now" ensures you're targeting only today's date.

---

3. Lease Start Date is Tomorrow

Trigger:

• [Date Property] is more than 0 days from now AND [Date Property] is less than 2 days from now.

Explanation:

• "More than 0 days from now" ensures the date is in the future.
• "Less than 2 days from now" limits it to just tomorrow.

---

Summary of Triggers for Easy Reference:

1. Is Yesterday: [Date Property] is less than 2 days ago AND [Date Property] is more than 0 days ago.
2. Is Today: [Date Property] is less than 1 day ago AND [Date Property] is more than -1 day from now.
3. Is Tomorrow: [Date Property] is more than 0 days from now AND [Date Property] is less than 2 days from now.

[NoelleStorey]

Hi! 

Thanks so much for your response, this is super helpful information. However, each time I try to input "-1 days from now" for the "today" trigger criteria, it auto-corrects to 0. Is this what you've experienced?

Thank you!

[CSteinbach · Accepted solution]

You're correct that in HubSpot, -1 effectively translates to 0 (I often work across multiple automation tools, so I misspoke). The correct setup is as follows:

Trigger:

• [Date Property] is less than 1 day ago AND [Date Property] is more than 0 days from now.