Offline form 'Created Date' column discrepancy with actual submission date

conorhanson

Hi all,

I've been supporting a project that's utilizing Smartsheet's offline form submission. We want to capture the date of each form submission. However, since this is a large and fast-paced project, and we're doing A LOT of data collection, I tried to minimize the friction a person experiences while collecting data. So I setup the 'Created Date' column assuming that would capture the timestamp the moment a person presses 'Submit.' I'm finding that this is not the case.

Is Smartsheet not programmed to do this? Is the 'Created Date' column filled with the timestamp of when the submission is sent over WiFi (once it's connected)? I have added a date column the Data Collector manually fills, but I'd very much like a feature hard-coded into Smartsheet that captures the date of the form submission automatically, even if offline, the moment the 'Submit' button is pressed.

Here is a screenshot of 2 rows: the first row is correct, because I'm assuming it was connected to WiFi and submitted the same day. The second row I know for a fact was collected on 8/26, yet the 'Created Date' column shows 8/27. Again, this is presumably the timestamp for when the form was submitted over WiFi.

Any info on this would be helpful.

Thanks!

Paul Newcome

The only way to reliably do this is to have the user enter the date directly into the form.

The Created Date column does not capture the submission of the form but rather the creation of the row.

Even if connected when you submit the form... If you click on Submit at 11:59:59pm, if there is any kind of lag whatsoever in between the clicking of the Submit button and when the row is created, you could potentially have a date of the next day and 12:00:00am.

conorhanson

Got it. Thanks for verifying and clarifying, Paul!

Paul Newcome

The only way to reliably do this is to have the user enter the date directly into the form.

The Created Date column does not capture the submission of the form but rather the creation of the row.

Even if connected when you submit the form... If you click on Submit at 11:59:59pm, if there is any kind of lag whatsoever in between the clicking of the Submit button and when the row is created, you could potentially have a date of the next day and 12:00:00am.

conorhanson

Got it. Thanks for verifying and clarifying, Paul!

Paul Newcome

Happy to help. 👍️