How to automatically collect today’s date with an excel friendly output

Hello,
I want to have a way of automatically collecting today’s date with an excel friendly output (automatically recognised as a date without any reformatting)

question
output in excel
Meta data =

2018-08-16T11:43:00.555+06
Calculate Q with “today()”

2018-08-16T00:00:00.000+06
date question it seems

right format but requires manual input and subject to human error

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Hi @Banglad,

At present, KoBo Formbuilder has an option to collect Date and time separately where you will not have to rely solely on the meta data collected by KoBoToolbox. For this you can simply create a new form and choose Date or Time under the Add Question.

In the other hand, if you are using an xlsform for designing a survey question, you can simply type date under the type column (to collect the date) or time under the type column (to collect the time) . But for this you will have to select the date and time and press ok after making the selections. (Note: while following this method, you will be able to collect date and time by backdating or collecting the same for the future. The enumerators as well as the supervisors should ensure that this error has not been made while collecting data.)

Alternatively, there is a way to collect Date and Time in xlsform where you do not need to enter any key for collecting the same (the system will automatically collect the same for you) and can also minimize the chances of errors (as stated above) while collecting date and time for the survey. For this please follow as mentioned in the image below:

image
With this you (or your enumerators) will not need to worry while entering the current date and time during data collection. However, you (or your enumerators) should ensure that the date and time are set correctly (or is correct) in the device (mobile/tablet) as you will be getting the date and time that is in the system (device). If this is distorted you will be receiving the wrong date and time.

1 Like

Hello Kal_Lam,

As you presented it, Can we calculate those data to get a bar code or QR and display it in form? ((name, time, date) = QR or Bar Code Display) Thank you