workflow 2010 will show a Date equal to 01/01/0001 inside the email, if the Date is empty

Question

I am working on SharePoint server 2013, and i create a new Workflow 2010 inside Sharepoint designer 2013. now inside the Workflow i set an email which contain the following value:-

[%Current Item:Contract Review Date%]

now if the "Contract Review Date" value is empty , the email will contain the following value 01/01/0001instead of showing empty string. So can anyone advice how to fix this problem.

I mean how to allow if the contract review date is empty then to show empty string inside the email, instead of 01/01/0001?

Answer 1

Create a new variable, ReviewDateForEmail of type string.

Run a check,

If [%Current Item:Contract Review Date%] is not equal to 01/01/0001
Set ReviewDateForEmail to [%Current Item:Contract Review Date%]
(if desired)
Else Set ReviewDateForEmail to There is no set review date for this item.

In your email, use the ReviewDateForEmail. This will result in either the contract review date, or an empty string, or a fixed string if desired..

Answer 2

Date fields are never truly empty, so the option doesn't exist. An "empty" date field is actually set to 1/1/0001.

So for your specific project, forget the whole "storing the string values of the dates" thing, that won't work. Instead, set up the workflow to perform the action if Date field is greater than 1/1/0001.

Answer 3

Create an initiation variable of type string and don't set a default value. Before you write Contract Review Date to your email, use an if statement to check if the date is greater than 1/1/1900. If it is, use the date... if not, use the null variable.

Answer 4

Create a local variable of type date/time. Do not assign any value.

if condition : If [Contract review Date] is equal to [Local Variable]. 

This should work for your condition to be working.

Answer 5

Create a calculated column (lets say 'IsBlank_CRD') in the list with formula

=IF(ISBLANK([Contract Review Date]),"Y","N")

Now in workflow check if 'IsBlank_CRD' is 'Y' or 'N' , to do the further processing in email.