Overview

How are dates and times used in Iterable?

Dates and times are used throughout Iterable for various reasons. Generally, they're used to describe one of the following:

• When something did happen - For example, when a campaign completed sending.
• When something will happen - For example, when a campaign is scheduled to send.
• A CRUD time - When a resource was created, read, updated, or deleted.
• A date range - A period of time defined by a start date/time and a stop date/time, usually based on user selection.

Dates and times can be specific (exact dates and times), or relative ("three days ago").

 

Guidelines

General rules for writing dates

Dates should be written to include the numeric day, abbreviated month, and numeric year.

 

Users have the ability to set whether the day comes before or after the month.

Abbreviate the months of the year like this:

• Jan
• Feb
• Mar
• Apr
• May
• Jun
• Jul
• Aug
• Sep
• Oct
• Nov
• Dec

 

Write out the full year—don’t abbreviate.

 

Don’t add ordinal indicators to dates.

General rules for writing times

Times can be written in either 12-hour or 24-hour format based on a user’s settings. (12-hour format includes a.m. or p.m.)Include the word "at" between the date and the time.

Times should reflect the user's browser time zone, followed by UTC in parentheses or a hover state. For example:

Template created Jan 7, 2021 at 4:35 p.m. CDT (UTC-6:00)

For time zones that observe daylight saving time, specify whether the displayed time is standard time or daylight saving time at the appropriate times of year.

For time zones that do not observe daylight saving time, specify that the time zone is standard time, like this:

12:35 p.m. HST (UTC-10:00)

 

How to format dates/times in different parts of Iterable

 

Send dates/times

Specify the day of the week, month, date, year, and time the resource was created.

Include the user's time zone (derived from browser time). Include the UTC offset on hover (e.g., UTC-7:00).

 

Resource creation / last modified dates

Specify the month, date, year, and time the resource was created.

Don't include the day of the week in resource creation / last modified dates.

 

Date ranges

In general, use relative dates to describe date ranges, then list the full date range on hover.

Example:

Date range: 1 month

Hover state: Dec 12, 2020 – Jan 12, 2021

Use an en dash (–) between two dates to indicate a date range.

NOTE: Do not use a hyphen (-) or an em dash (—).

Leave spaces on either side of the en dash for readability.

Don't include times or time zones in date ranges.

 

 

 

Relative dates

Use relative dates to describe how long ago an asset was created or launched in Iterable.

Use the following relative dates:

• a few seconds ago [0-59 seconds]
• a minute ago [60-119 seconds]
• X minutes ago [2-59 minutes]
• an hour ago [60-119 minutes]
• X hours ago [2-23 hours]
• a day ago [24-47 hours]
• X days ago [2-29 days]
• a month ago [30-59 days]
• X months ago [60-364 days]
• A year ago [365-729 days]
• X years ago [730+ days]

Specify the full date/time in a hover state tooltip (see the "Dates & times" tab of this section).