Check for empty date in SPD Workflow

Question

Question

How can I check for an empty date condition in a SharePoint Designer Workflow?

Background

I have a list called "Project" with multiple date fields. I have a calendar called "Project Scheduling" where I want to copy those dates. For every pair of two dates (such as "Construction Start"/"Construction End" and "Design Start"/"Design End") for a single "Project" listitem I want to create one list item in the calendar.

I do this by creating a workflow that triggers on add/change and will push the dates to the calendar if both dates in the pair have a value. To check for null dates I have to first store the string values of the dates in workflow variables because you cannot use the "is empty" condition with a date field. However, when I try to check for "is empty" on the date string values the string returns as not empty and it tries to execute my code for creating the item in the "Project Scheduling" calendar. For some reason that fails even though the string is not empty. I would assume that it would succeed seeing as how there was a value in the date string.

Answer 1

I tried logging the date string values before executing the creation of the listitem in the "Project Scheduling" calendar but the workflow would error without logging. Then I removed the listitem creation part and the logging worked. It was there that I noticed that the date values were set to 1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM.

I found the same problem on Cliff Chaney's Blog and he provided the solution of:

1. Converting the date to a short date
2. Storing the date in a string workflow variable
3. Comparing the string workflow variable to "1/1/0001"

Answer 2

Since a date field defaults to 1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM, to check for null dates set the workflow to check to see if the specified field date is less than the Created date. If the date field is less than the Created date then you know the field is empty.

Answer 3

You can just check to see if the field is less than 1/1/2001 - that works for checking to see if the field hasn't been populated. Even though it prints out on a log as 1/1/0001 - checking to see if equal to that value doesn't work. Also less than 1/1/2000 doesn't work either - but less than 1/1/2001 worked for me on SP 2013 (2010 workflow).

Answer 4

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 both Date fields are greater than 1/1/0001.

Answer 5

I've also found that creating a Local Variable called BlankDate of type Date/Time works as a way to CHECK for an empty date.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work for SETTING a field to null.

For setting a "null" date, the best I could do was creating a Local Variable called NullDate of type Date/Time and setting it to 1/1/1900 12:00:00 AM.

Then that means I have to check for BlankDate or NullDate.

Answer 6

This thread is from ages ago, so perhaps things have changed, but I found problems with checking for the 1/1/0001 date. Instead I set up a workflow Number variable equal to the date field, and selected the option for 'number of seconds since 1900'. Then ran an If/then on whether the variable was greater than zero.