Date one year from date

[annetoal]

Is there a way to add 1 year to a date? Not 365 days, because that will break every leap year. I understand addDays is the expression I would use.

Thanks,

Anne

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

Use the AddToTime() function and use "Year" as the interval.  Its the generic version of AddDays().

[Paulie78 · Accepted solution]

I think addDays would be more reliable than simply replacing the year, because if you just change the year, that day might not exist a year into the future. But anyway, you can just replace the year part of the date with the current year plus one, you could do it like this:

replace
(
    outputs('date'), 
    formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'yyyy'),
    string(add(int(formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'yyyy')),1))	
)

It just replaces the current year, with next year. I think I would still use addDays though.

Replied at the same time as @Pstork1 - his response is much better! 😂

[annetoal]

Thanks! Now a follow-up question: is there a way to force the date 1 year in the future to be the nearest weekday? In other words, if the date 1 year in the future falls on a weekend, it would show the Friday or Monday closest to that day. Any help greatly appreciated.

Anne

[annetoal]

Would that break if the date was calculated one year from Leap Day?

Anne

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

Calculate the date for a year in advance and then test it to find what day it is.  If its weekend add or subtract a day to get to Friday or Monday.

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

I did some testing and it will work even if the input date is 2/29 in Leap year.  But it doesn't seem very sophisticated.  If I input 2/29/2024 and add a year I get 2/28/2025.  If I add 4 years I get 2/29/2028.  So it only deals with Leap year when processing Leap Day.  Otherwise it basically just changes the year.

[ChadVKealey]

@Pstork1 , I'm working on a "task schedule" for our university's registrar. They have events/tasks that need to recur every year on the same day of week. For example, "Verify faculty enrollments" needs to happen on the Monday of week 1 in our fall quarter. In 2020, that was 9/21/2020. This year, it was 9/20/2020. Using "addToTime(<start-time>,1, 'Year')" would (as noted above) simply replace the year, resulting in this year's iteration landing on Tuesday, 9/21/2021. I suspect that simply subtracting one day will do the trick (with the caveat that some manual oversight will be needed), but not sure if I should subtract it before or after adding the year, or if it even matters. So, use:

addToTime(subtractFromTime(<start-date>,1,'Day'),1,'Year')

OR

subtractFromTime(addToTime(<start-time>,1,'Year'),1,'Day')

EDIT: When it comes to dealing with leap year, the order matters. You need to add a year, then subtract a day (the second formula) to keep it on the same day of the week.

• Start date: 2020-02-29 = Saturday 02-29-2020
• addToTime(date,1,'Year'): 2021-02-28T00:00:00.0000000 = Sunday 02-28-2021
• addToTime(subtractFromTime(date,1,'Day'),1,'Year'): 2021-02-28T00:00:00.0000000 = Sunday 02-28-2021
• subtractFromTime(addToTime(date,1,'Year'),1,'Day'): 2021-02-27T00:00:00.0000000 = Saturday 02-27-2021

[Pstork1]

Rather than adding a day and subtracting a year why not just add 364 days?  That will give the same result.

addDays(<start time>,364)

[ChadVKealey]

True...that is simpler. I was kind of stuck on using "addToTime" to keep things "leap year aware". Actually, testing with dates just before/after leap day shows that just adding 364 days works, while neither other method proves to be reliable. Thanks!

[MitheshRpa]

if i use this in Power automate desktop , it giving as text vaule , but not date output

[MitheshRpa · Accepted solution]

Use Add to Datetime activity and add 1 year in the options !!

[Pstork1]

Power Automate Desktop has no support for functions.  As @MitheshRpa mentions you have to use an action instead of a function.

[annetoal]

Thanks very kindly.

A

[WinstonOrwell]

This explanation is terrible, and does not work!