CreateDateTimeFromString

Creates a DateTime from a string. This action parses a date/time value that arrives as text — such as from an EDI segment, flat file, or API response — and converts it into a proper DateTime object that can be used by other ruleset actions for calculation, comparison, or reformatting.

FormatPattern Syntax Reference

The FormatPattern uses letter codes to represent each component of the date and time. The most commonly used tokens are:

Note: Month (MM) and minutes (mm) use different cases — always use uppercase MM for month and lowercase mm for minutes to avoid parsing errors.

Examples

DateTimeString: 2016/05/31 11:22:10 FormatPattern: yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss Return: 2016-05-31T11:22:10.000-04:00

Additional pattern examples:

Tip: Literal characters in the pattern (such as the T separator in ISO 8601 format) should be wrapped in single quotes — e.g. yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss — to prevent them from being interpreted as pattern tokens.

Typical Use Case

Converting an EDI date field for downstream processing

EDI documents commonly carry dates in compact formats without separators — for example, an 850 Purchase Order might express a required delivery date as 20240615 in a DTM segment. Before this value can be used in a duration calculation or comparison, it needs to be a proper DateTime.

From there, the DateTime can be passed to CalculateDuration to determine how many days remain until the delivery date, or to CreateStringFromDateTime to reformat it for a different target system.

Notes

• If either DateTimeString or FormatPattern is null, the action returns null — include a null check in your ruleset if the source value may be absent.
• If the string does not match the pattern exactly, the action will throw a parse error. Ensure the pattern matches the source format precisely, including any separators (dashes, slashes, spaces).
• The returned DateTime includes timezone offset information based on the system's default locale, as shown in the example return value 2016-05-31T11:22:10.000-04:00.

Related Actions

• CreateDateTime: use when date components arrive as separate numeric fields rather than a single string.
• CreateDateTimeFromMilliseconds: use when the source system provides a Unix epoch timestamp.
• FormatDateTime: use to reformat an existing DateTime into a different string pattern for output.
• CreateStringFromDateTime: converts a DateTime back into a formatted string for use in a target document.