provide message when user enters 2 digit year

[rutica]

Hi all

In my Power Apps form, I have several date picker fields. I notice Power Apps lets me enter invalid dates (ex: 5/12/23). It doesn't give me an error, so I think I'm saving the date, but it actually doesn't save because of the 2 digit year. 

How can I alert the user about this? I found another post that said to insert a text box next to the date picker with the Text property: If(IsBlank(DataCardValue01.SelectedDate), "", IsMatch( Text(DataCardValue01.SelectedDate, "[$-en-US]dd/mm/yyyy"), "^\d{2}\/\d{2}\/\d{4}"), "", "Date format must be dd/mm/yyyy")

But it doesn't work. No matter what date I enter, the words don't appear. 

Any advice?

Thanks 

[TheRobRush]

two things you can do, whatever submits that form change its display mode to

If(IsBlank(DatePicker1.SelectedDate),DisplayMode.Disabled,DisplayMode.Edit)

where you change DatePicker1 to the name of the Actual DatePickerControl on the card

secondly design a warning message label, put it right below the datepicker and make its visible

IsBlank(DatePicker1.SelectedDate)

again where datepicker1 is the name of the actualt datepicker control we are referencing

putthing these two together will restrict the user from submitting the form at all and tell them why they cant

[rutica]

Thanks @TheRobRush  but the field is allowed to be blank. I just want a message next to the Date Picker that alerts the user if they enter an invalid date (ex: a 2 digit year).

For example, I have 10 date fields and I entered 10 dates with 2 digit years. I clicked Save and Close and got the OnSuccess message. But when I went back to the form, none of the dates had been saved. So I want to alert the user when they enter an invalid date. 

The IsBlank doesn't do anything for invalid dates. 

Thanks

[SebS]

@rutica 

This format provides a static number of characters using Len() function.

If(Len(Text(DatePicker1.SelecteDate,"dd/mm/yyyy")) < 10,"incorrect Date","") stick this to label or place it in OnChange property and rather text use Error msg

I forgot You need to format it as Text  as well

[rutica]

Hi @SebS  Thanks for writing.

I tried your code in a label and it works, but it displays the message even when the field is blank. 

So I tried to add IsBlank to the label's Text property as shown below, but I wasn't successful, it still shows the message even when the field is blank. 

If(IsBlank(DataCardValue45.SelectedDate), "",If(Len(Text(DataCardValue45.SelectedDate,"dd/mm/yyyy")) < 10,"incorrect Date",""))

I tried including this code in the DataCardValue45 InputTextPlaceholder property, but still no luck:

 If(IsBlank(Self.SelectedDate), Text(Blank()))

Thanks

[rutica]

@WarrenBelz  Do you have any advice for me? How do you handle your date picker fields in your forms? 

Thanks

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @rutica ,

As @SebS and @TheRobRush have noted, the problem with a Date Picker control when IsEditable is true is that it is just for that - editing dates already selected. SelectedDate is the only property you can test and if you edit with an invalid format, it simply does not update.

[rutica]

Thanks for writing @WarrenBelz . So what do you do with non-required date fields in your PowerApps form? I'm wondering what is the best practice?

What I decided to do is: I changed IsEditable to true. And I put a label next to each date field with @SebS 's code: 

If(Len(Text(DataCardValueXX.SelectedDate,"dd/mm/yyyy")) < 10,"Enter a 4 digit year or the date won't save","")

My date fields are not required, so it's not ideal since the label is showing for blank values. But at least the text goes away if the user enters a correct date. But I think it looks silly:

Thanks

[SebS]

@rutica 

Ok, the issue here is if you set DatetimeFormat.ShortDate no matter what, if the user enters the wrong date, the field does not record a change and considers DatePicer filed as Blank. This prevents You from creating any rules when the user enters the wrong Date, and there is no fix for that than a label stating, "Hey User, this is the format you need to use", which does not look great 🙂 So best to allow users just use Datepicker and not play with Manual data entry.

Now I'm assuming the Milestone date can have a range of Years, and to make the experience easy for the user, You decided that they can enter the date manually to speed it up. Is that the reason?

If so, please not user can easily change the date in the date picker by clicking on the date on the screen

Now if this is not the case, there is a solution that I can provide to sort out this dilemma and it will look good and have all functionalities but it's more thinking out of the box and very dirty trick what will take time to explain so I would like to avoid this 🙂

[rutica]

Thanks for writing @SebS 

If IsEditable=false (meaning users must only use the date picker), then:
• tab stops don’t work for that field
• it forces users to use the clunky date picker
• you can’t easily delete a date once it’s entered (it's doable, but requires buttons, variables, code, and turning on Formula-Level Error Management in Settings)

Overall, this seems like an oversight on Microsoft's part- the form should automatically alert the user that an invalid date was detected.

I did just yesterday learn the drop-down Year trick on the date picker! It's not intuitive that the Year can be a drop down. But thanks for the screenshot! I'm sure it will help many others. 🙂

I'll just keep my form as-is. It's not perfect, but it should do the job. 

Thanks again!