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How to Display Date Information in Siebel Reports

NOTE:  The information described in this section concerning dates is for legacy Siebel reports. In version 7 reports, all newly created date fields must use Formatted date fields from Application and ssDateTimeControl from sscustom. This new Actuate control has verity of format options to pick including Short-Date, Long-Date and Medium-Date (same for time).

Date information is more complicated than revenue data. As with the currency information, each Report Object field is mapped to two variables in the data row:

• ssDateFieldName. The standard field is in the format of Siebel's internal date representation and is always in the format MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS.
• ssDateFieldName_Formatted. The formatted field comes in the format specified for the business component that is used to get the data, and it uses the locale settings of the machine. If the screen displays dates using the system short date format, the DataRow variable will be populated with 31/12/01, 12/31/01, or 01/12/31, depending on the locale setting of the machine.

  The key factor is that the string does not need any additional formatting and can be displayed using the ssTxt control. Attempting to use the ssDate control with Date_Formatted information will cause a fatal error within Actuate e.Report Designer Professional or the Siebel application.

  NOTE:  Use ssTxt when using the formatted date.

To display the full month name, date, and year (November 24, 2001), use ssDate.

The ssDate control forces an explicit conversion of the string date expression using known settings. The string is then converted back into string format and displayed using the format from the Format property. If the string is an empty string, the control is detached from the frame so that no data is shown.

Five predefined date formats are used within the standard reports. ssDate, ssDateLongDate, and ssDateShortDate all use date settings from the regional locale settings on the machine. ssDateHNNAP and ssDateMMMMDDYYYY use hard-coded format strings to display the information in a specialized format. The date library components are the following:

• ssDate. Short date and standard time
• ssDateHNNAP. Time with AM or PM, as in 12:55 AM
• ssDateLongDate. Long date (regional setting)
• ssDateMMMMDDYYYY. Date with text month, as in November 24, 2001
• ssDateShortDate. Short date (regional setting)

You can modify the date formats in the sscustom library by changing the Format property of the date control. New date formats can be added by subclassing from ssDate. To change the Short Date or Long Date displays, change the regional settings on the machine.