Code-based Actions: Working with dates

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Within Flow, there is an advanced system in place that can detect, extract, convert, and format a date and time. This helps the end users to select a date and book an appointment.

Slot filling

The easiest way to work with dates and timings is using an Any text slot of the entity type Date.

Whenever a customer mentions text like today, next Saturday, or 12th of September the AI engine will transform this into a UTC date, relative to the timezone of the customer.

Date and time is relative

Flow works with a built-in timezone system. If the current date and time of a user in Amsterdam is 2 pm, 27th of August, the date and time are translated to a UTC date time format with the value 2019-08-27T12:00:00.000.

With UTC it is possible to transform a date to any local format. Since time is relative, tomorrow would represent different for a user in Japan, compared to users on the west coast of the US.

Formatting dates

If you want to format dates to a local format you need to use a code action.

To format dates and times, you need to use Moment.js and Moment Timezone package code actions:

// Convert a date to Dutch date format  
moment(date).tz('Europe/Amsterdam').format('LLLL')

Use the following example code to format data and add it as a param:

async payload => {  
  const {  
    params  
  } = payload

  if(Array.isArray(params.some_date)) {  
    // Format a date in Europe/Amsterdam format  
    return {  
      params: {  
        ...payload.params,  
        formatted_date: \[{  
          value: moment(params.some_date[0].value).tz('Europe/Amsterdam').format('LLLL')  
        }]  
      }  
    }  
  }  
}

The above code action converts a date and returns it as a new param.

Using a user's timezone offset

Within the payload of a Code Action, you can capture any user profile data, including timezone offset (if available).

The offset is the number of hours a user relative to UTC.

Use the timezone offset to convert a date to a local format with the following code:

async payload => {  
  const {  
    params,  
    user  
  } = payload

  const {  
    profile  
  } = user

  if(!Array.isArray(params.some_date)) {  
    // Skip if there is no date to format  
    return  
  }

  // Dynamic timezone based on user timezone offset  
  const region = profile.timezone \< 0 ? `Etc/GMT${profile.timezone}` : `Etc/GMT+${profile.timezone || 0}` 

  return {  
    params: {  
      ...payload.params,  
      formatted_date: \[{  
        value: moment(params.some_date[0].value).tz(region).format('LLLL')  
      }]  
    }  
  }  
}

Updated 11 months ago

Slot filling

Date and time is relative

Formatting dates

Using a user's timezone offset

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