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). 

[Achagnon1]

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.

[Achagnon1]

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

[Achagnon1]

Hi all!

It's Shay again from the Product Manager on the CRM product team.

Again, thanks to everyone for taking the time to submit, upvote, and comment on this Idea. We’re still reviewing this idea and trying to determine the best way to implement this in HubSpot. Turns out it’s a fairly complex engineering problem. To better understand all of the use cases for this type of field, we've created this survey and would very much appreciate it if you all could take a couple of minutes to fill it out.

Thanks,

Shay

[Achagnon1]

Hi folks,

I’m Shay Jones, the Product Manager on the CRM product team.

Thank you all for taking the time to submit, upvote, and comment on this Idea. We hear you loud and clear, and we agree that this functionality is important. We are currently evaluating if this Idea is feasible and, if so, how our team will implement it. 

Any news about this feature request will be relayed on this thread, so stay tuned!

-Shay

[Ruben_tB]

@shajones really, really, but really looking forward to an update! 

[CaptainSprocket]

Please.

[LSilva8]

Please, this feature would be much appreciated !!

[H_yukawa]

I'd like this,too.

I really need it!!

[WJames7]

Six months without an update? We're new to hubspot, just ran into this missing functionality,
Surprised and disappointed this hasn't been addressed with gusto.

This issue will influence our long-term CRM decisions if not addressed;

hubspot it's up to you to protect your revenue stream by taking care of the basics.

[shajones]

Hi all!

It's Shay again from the Product Manager on the CRM product team.

Again, thanks to everyone for taking the time to submit, upvote, and comment on this Idea. We’re still reviewing this idea and trying to determine the best way to implement this in HubSpot. Turns out it’s a fairly complex engineering problem. To better understand all of the use cases for this type of field, we've created this survey and would very much appreciate it if you all could take a couple of minutes to fill it out.

Thanks,

Shay

[kirstenmhb]

Really looking forward to seeing this feature! We have a couple of specific use cases where we are currently using a workaround that is complex and involves multiple workflows. With such a property, we could simplify and streamline our workflow 🙂 

[TCornRain]

Very encouraged to see this is getting some eyes by the product team. We really need this functionality to take our pipeline management to the next level within HubSpot. We currently have to export to Excel to run the reports needed to manage our team against rules of engagement. 

[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.

[Lauren_Lysko]

^^^ this would be amazing for us 

[JGibson19]

Any updates here? @Shay 

[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

[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 @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

[MFulleda]

Any updates on this? 

[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

[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]

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.

[LBouchet1]

Hi @shajones,

Do you have any more updates on this at all?

Thanks a million,

Luke

[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?