There are functions which you can use in your rules to get a particular date and time.
Get a date and time by joining together a separate date and time
Get a date and time from a text string
Get a date and time by adding or subtracting a specified number of hours to another date and time
Get a date and time by adding or subtracting a specified number of minutes to another date and time
Get a date and time by adding or subtracting a specified number of seconds to another date and time
To insert the system date and time into a rule, you use the Current Date Time function. For example, the following comparison:
the date and time of the investigation = CurrentDateTime()
will infer the date and time of the investigation to be 2007-11-12 15:37:00 if the rule is run on 2007-11-12 at 15:37:00.
NOTE: The Current Date Time function returns the system date/time at the start of the session.
To set a date and time from a separate date and a separate time, you use the Concatenate Date Time function. For example:
the latest submission time = ConcatenateDateTime(the submission date, the submission closing time)
will infer the latest submission time to be 2010-01-15 17:00:00 if the submission date is 2010-01-15 and the submission closing time is 17:00:00.
To set the value of a date and time variable from a text string, you use the DateTime function. For example:
the latest submission date and time= DateTime(the submission date and time specified on the application form)
will infer the latest submission date and time to be 2012-12-31 18:00:00 if the submission date and time specified on the application form is a text variable with the value of 2012-12-31 18:00:00.
To add or subtract a specified number of hours to an input date and time to get a new date and time, you use the Add Hours function. For example:
the start datetime for the B grade runners = the time 2 hours before the start datetime for the A grade runners
will infer the start datetime for the B grade runners to be 2011-02-03 08:00:00 if the start datetime for the A grade runners is 2011-02-03 10:00:00.
To add or subtract a specified number of minutes to an input date and time to get a new date and time, you use the Add Minutes function. For example:
the datetime that the parking meter expires = the time 60 minutes after the datetime that the parking fee was paid
will infer the datetime that the parking meter expires to be 2012-10-10 12:04:17 if the datetime that the parking fee was paid is 2012-10-10 11:04:17.
To add or subtract a specified number of seconds to an input date and time to get a new date and time, you use the Add Seconds function. For example:
the completion datetime = AddSeconds(the start datetime, 30)
will infer the completion datetime to be 2009-01-01 16:30:00 if the start time is 2009-01-01 16:29:30.