Has URL-Encoding for automatic Date Entry in SS Forms changed?
We generate, from our scheduling database, a complex encoded URL that auto-populates several fields in a Form, including the Date of the Activity. Today, we're finding that those links no longer prefill the date field. Everything else works normally, and it's happening with all links, past and present, regardless of platform or browser.
I've carefully inspected both the Field Label on the Form and that corresponding part of the URL, and they match perfectly; and I have further evidence this is not the issue: In this post I noticed the submitter was formatting his dates YYYY-MM-DD, instead of MM/DD/YYYY as I have. So out of curiosity, I tried changing that in my URL—and it worked correctly.
So to be clear: This (current method) does not work:
https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/12345?Category=Live+Presentations&Date=6/24/2025
This does work.
https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/12345?Category=Live+Presentations&Date=2025-06-24
Any thoughts on what is going on here? We've been using these encoded URLs for a couple of years with no issues. If necessary, I can redo these links to use the different date function, but that will be a fair bit of work to implement so hoping it won't be necessary.
Best Answer
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Hi,
I hope you're well and safe!
This is due to a recent release of more modern forms.The Smartsheet team is aware of the issue and is working on a solution.
I hope that helps!
Be safe, and have a fantastic day!
Best,
Andrée Starå | Smartsheet Expert Consultant & Partner / CEO @ WORK BOLD
✅ Did I help answer your question/solve the problem? Please support with💡 ⬆️ ❤️, and/or ✅ Answer. This will make it easier for others to find a solution or help answer! I appreciate it, thank you! 🙏SMARTSHEET EXPERT CONSULTANT & PARTNER
Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD
W: www.workbold.com | E: andree@workbold.com | P: +46 (0) - 72 - 510 99 35
Feel free to contact me for help with Smartsheet, integrations, general workflow advice, or anything else.
Answers
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You are right. It appears that what used to work, i.e., "&Date=6/24/2025", no longer works, and as you wrote, "&Date=2025-06-24" does work.
I used the [yyyy-mm-dd] helper column with the following formula;
=YEAR(Date@row) + "-" + MONTH(Date@row) + "-" + DAY(Date@row)
I also tested changing "/" to "%2F", but that did not work.
If this change is permanent, Smartsheet should update the help article.
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Hi,
I hope you're well and safe!
This is due to a recent release of more modern forms.The Smartsheet team is aware of the issue and is working on a solution.
I hope that helps!
Be safe, and have a fantastic day!
Best,
Andrée Starå | Smartsheet Expert Consultant & Partner / CEO @ WORK BOLD
✅ Did I help answer your question/solve the problem? Please support with💡 ⬆️ ❤️, and/or ✅ Answer. This will make it easier for others to find a solution or help answer! I appreciate it, thank you! 🙏SMARTSHEET EXPERT CONSULTANT & PARTNER
Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD
W: www.workbold.com | E: andree@workbold.com | P: +46 (0) - 72 - 510 99 35
Feel free to contact me for help with Smartsheet, integrations, general workflow advice, or anything else.
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Thank you @jmyzk_cloudsmart_jp…the URL is created in our Filemaker Database so if this change ends up being permanent I'll have to reformat the date at that end. Per the post Andree forwarded, it looks like others are having similar issues so hopefully we'll see a fix soon.
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We are experiencing the same issue and it came completely unexpectedly. Our end users started reaching out the morning of 6/24/2025 and I've been attempting to work with Smartsheet Support since then, to no avail. If this is a permanent change, it will require significant rework of formulas. I'm grateful to have found this post because I am having a hard time explaining what the issue is to our support tech. I also hope that Smartsheet releases a fix soon as this has a significant impact on our end users.
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@Rachael Whitton, here's the current situation from SS Support:
Since 'near future' was pretty ambiguous, I went ahead and reformatted the dates in our encoded URLs—I'm fortunate that this only took a little coding, and a couple of hours of work pushing updates. I hope this info helps you with your planning. -
Thank you @FrogHolder_01 . I agree, quite ambiguous. I think we'll need to do the same unfortunately.
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We've released an update to support additional date formats. While we still suggest YYYY-MM-DD to avoid ambiguity across locales, URL parameters will now accept additional formats. Forward slash, dot and hyphen are all acceptable separators. For example: "7/10/2025", "7.10.2025", "7-10-2025" are now allowed.
