Having a dynamic 'today' field in the 'Time between' feature

[Achagnon1]

I'm in the process of setting up calculated properties to use the new "time between" feature in reporting, and realized that, in the 'time between' calculations for properties, I'd like to have access to the option 'today,' which would be a dynamic date set as the value of today's date.

That would allow me to track dynamically how long has it been since a deal has been created ('today' minus 'create date' = how far along we are in the sales cycle up till now). 

[SkeeStylus · Accepted solution]

Great news everyone.  Looks like the the excellent work of @rwebb1 and the product team we can now filter, report on, and sort by the time since or the time until an event.  Great addition!  Here's more on the full BETA.  

[rwebb1 · Accepted solution]

 👋Hi all, quick update on the 'create time since/time until properties' beta. These properties can now be used in filters (lists, CRM index page views), automations (as a filter), and can also be used to build reports. Here is a fresh demo and updated KB article that reflects these changes. You can opt into the beta here. 

Mobile support for these properties is coming shortly, and we are looking into getting these available in conditional formatting in reports. Thank you for your feedback!

[RPepin9]

Love this new beta that allows us to create 'time since' and 'time until' calculated properties. I just was implementing some things and realized these properties can't be used in conditional formatting. Any chance that will be added? 

[garciapiano]

Man... this cannot come soon enough! Not having this feature is like trying to bake a cake without a timer!

[SkeeStylus · Accepted solution]

Great news everyone.  Looks like the the excellent work of @rwebb1 and the product team we can now filter, report on, and sort by the time since or the time until an event.  Great addition!  Here's more on the full BETA.  

[TKadavil]

+1

[rwebb1]

👋Hi everyone! Sharing two updates: 

1. [Rolling out to all customers] Display relative time from 'today' for Date and Datetime properties (demo😞 Quickly visualize and understand “how long until” or “how long since” a moment in time, using existing date/datetime properties.
2. [In beta] Create 'time since' and 'time until' calculated properties (demo😞 Create two new types of calculated properties, Time Since and Time Until, to calculate the time between a date/datetime and Today. During the early stage of this beta, you will not be able to filter on these properties in places like Lists, Workflows, and CRM Views. This support will be added while the feature is in beta.

This Knowledge Base article covers both the solutions above plus existing functionality in HubSpot to filter and trigger automation based on today's date, some of which was described by Jeff in this thread. Please shoot me an email at @ rwebb@hubspot.com or book time if you have questions or feedback on these solutions! Thanks for the feedback you've provided thus far!

[MValleskey]

We have been asking for this for years. So do not hold your breath

[CSaß]

+1

[RRMG]

Hey @jeffvincent, also thanks from us for your input

We have a different use case, our goal is to calculate the average revenue per day per customer. We want to do this for past and current years to allow a comparison that can filter for customers who are far behind what they used to spend.

To do this, we created a date property that represents the first day of the year. We planned to use a 'time between' calculation property to see how many days had passed since the first day of the year. For this we would need a dynamic 'today' property or option.

Similar to Ruben, we understand your examples but do not think we can implement them for our use case. Perhaps you have an idea for our situation?

[LBouchet1]

Hi @shajones,

Do you have any more updates on this at all?

Thanks a million,

Luke

[jeffvincent]

Hi @Ruben_tB, appreciate the context. If you are creating properties to use in lists, you can replace it with the filters approach I detail in the video.

In the criteria for each list, you would create a filter like:

`First Order Date` more than `365` days ago AND `First Order Date` less than `730` days ago (for Year 1)

`First Order Date` more than `730` days ago AND `First Order Date` less than `1095` days ago (for Year 2)

etc

Hope that helps - let me know if I am missing something.

[Ruben_tB]

Thanks @jeffvincent for your reply here.

My clients use case is rather different I guess. Calculating the time between first order (we have that data point) and today to automatically capture the 'customer lifetime' of our contacts.

The customer lifetime property is used for segmenting contacts in lists based on the number of years they are customer.

Those lists are used in smart rules within one marketing email (to be able to show the right number of years a contact is customer) and as trigger criteria for the workflow that sends the x-years customer email.

I understand your example, but am I right I still need a 'todays date' property for my use case?

Thanks for your reply.

[jeffvincent]

Hey everyone! Jeff from the HubSpot product team. Thanks for the upvotes, comments, and survey submissions on this post. It's on me that we haven't responded as much as you would have liked. The Community means a lot, and (believe it or not) we read every comment.

I've been looking into this "dynamic time" challenge for a bit, and I think the solution most of you are looking for already exists - it might just be too hidden. I recorded a quick video walking through what I'm thinking (apologies it's not as "quick" as I'd like). Directions written out below. I welcome your response in the comments on this post - what did I miss? What use cases do you have that I might not be considering? Appreciate your insight.

When I've spoken to customers on this, the common needs are something like: "Fire a workflow when the 'renewal date' is in the next 30 days" or "Show me a report of everyone with a 'birthday' in the next 30 days", where renewal date and birthday are just examples.

To do that, try the following:

- Create a workflow on your object (in my example, Company is where "renewal date" is)

- Set the workflow to trigger "when criteria is met"

- Choose your date property (mine was "renewal date") and then look for the filter option "is less than" (maybe 2/3 down the list).

- In the "less than" filter settings, you can enter "days from now" or "days ago" - which both work off Today's date!

- Then add your other criteria and your action

I'm including a screenshot of the workflow and filter I used below. It's super simplistic - but it should give you an idea.

I hope (for some of you at least) this avoids the need for an intricate set of workflows to set a "Today's Date" property. Let me know in the comments if it helps, or if your use case would require something different. Really keen to learn more. We're interested in solving this problem, but its not at all easy to solve in Time Between properties (I so wish it was!) and I think this Filters solution gets at what a lot of you have been looking for.

Thanks for watching/reading and for your feedback.

Jeff

[MFulleda]

Any updates on this? 

[DStaat]

Hey @WJames7,

Thanks for reaching out! Can you clarify what you saw as far as HubSpot's data structure goes / the issue you're seeing? We're always looking for ways to improve so your feedback would be much appreciated!

Best,

-David Staat

[WJames7]

Hey David, congratulations on your Team creating some functionality that Hubspot seems determined to not provide : )

I have read your blog post and supporting documentation. The mechanism is el-neato but still suffers from having hubspot data structure as an underlying model. So the record will show a bunch of updates over time and yes if you have 100,000 contacts then there will be a total of 100,000 updates (at least where the field is used). This is fine and a low price to pay for having the actual functionality, so well done on building it - and for any anyone considering it - just take into consideration.

Pls. correct me if I'm wrong with this - it's my current understanding of hubspot structure and what you've written.

[DStaat]

Hey @Shay,

I'm Dave from the hapily support team! We just launched an app called Tick Tock Today that creates a today's date property for your objects. It's available on the HubSpot Marketplace.

I've formulated some different ways to use the property. Including a time between today's date and another date property! I documented how to create one in this blog post here.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. I'd be happy to hop on a call with you!

Best,

-David Staat

[JGibson19]

Any updates here? @Shay 

[Lauren_Lysko]

^^^ this would be amazing for us 

[NVlahov]

Really Need this. Please invite me if there is early beta, pre-beta, any beta. It would solve so many of my urgent data issues.