What is the best practice for a field that will sometimes be a date and sometimes be a date and time?

[Ms_Margo]

Hi Folks!

Would greatly appreciate best practice guidance for the date/time type in AppSheet…

Scenario: An announcement is scheduled for April 2021. Initially the dates are for April 1 - April 30th. As the announcement approaches, we will know the specific date/time.

I feel like this has to be done with 8 different fields but wanted folks feedback to see if there is a more simple way.

Kindly note we need the dates and times for the calendar and for a massive concatenation formula in the background building out a summary statement for an email workflow.

Proposed Fields:

• Has End Time? [Yes/No]
• Activity date and time [DateTime]
  • Show if [Has End Time?]=Yes
• start date [Date]
  • Show if [Has End Time?]=No
• end date [Date]
  • Show if [Has End Time?]=No
• hidden start date [Date]
  • IF([Has End Time?]=“Yes”,DATE([Activity date and time]),DATE([start date]))
• hidden start time [Time]
  • IF([Has End Time?]=“Yes”,TIME([Activity date and time]),"")
• hidden end date [Date]
  • IF([Has End Time?]=“Yes”,DATE([Activity date and time]),DATE([end date]))
• hidden end time [Time]
  • IF([Has End Time?]=“Yes”,TIME([Activity date and time]),"")

The Calendar UX is based on the hidden fields.

Is this the best way? Is there an easier way?