How do I use Date columns in wpDataTables?

Table of Contents

Video tutorial

How do Date columns work in wpDataTables?

Date columns render date values in the format you specify on the wpDataTables settings page. If the source data cannot be interpreted as a date, PHP defaults to 01/01/1970.

They cast values as dates and format them using your plugin settings.

Rendering rules: values are set as dates and formatted using the plugin-defined format.
Sorting rules: date-based sorting.
Applicable filter types: date range.

Issues to note:

With Excel files, format Date columns as plain text; the PHPSpreadsheet library does not parse all Excel date formats correctly, which often results in 01/01/1970 rendering.
With MySQL, cast timestamp and datetime columns as dates only to avoid problems.
Global search does not support date-based searching.

What does a Date column look like? Example of a table using date columns

In the example table, the Date column is formatted as DD/MM/YYYY (for example, 20/10/2018), shown alongside referral emails, hits, visitors, and revenue data.

Date :

Referral e-mail :

Hits :

Unique visitors :

Pages per Session :

Revenue :

Type :

Country :

id	Date	Referral e-mail	Hits	Unique visitors	Pages per Session	Revenue	Type	Country
1	20/10/2018	[email protected]	2,637	636	1.73	42.01	Implied	Slovakia
2	15/06/2019	[email protected]	1,512	540	9.77	90.17	External	Austria
3	26/10/2020	[email protected]	6,142	325	8.35	71.35	Tangible	Canada
4	23/02/2018	[email protected]	9,946	934	6.73	99.44	Implied	Russia
5	06/06/2018	[email protected]	3,062	282	3.24	78.21	Community	Russia
6	19/05/2018	[email protected]	3,447	1,692	4.29	96.90	Implied	Mexico
7	26/10/2020	[email protected]	6,193	403	2.63	99.72	Direct	Slovenia
8	27/07/2019	[email protected]	6,383	1,099	5.28	0.00	Implied	USA
9	06/09/2019	[email protected]	4,901	833	8.26	78.37	Tangible	Austria
10	01/01/2019	[email protected]	7,550	1,748	1.37	7.96	Tangible	Canada
	Date	Referral e-mail	Hits	Unique visitors	Pages per Session	Revenue	Type	Country
						∑ = 664.13

How do I set the date input format? Date column settings

If you created table using “Create a table linked to an existing data source” and the “Date” column is not rendered well (e.g., some cell values are missing) you have to choose the “Date input format” used in the provided data source. Our plugin guesses date formats correctly in most cases, but in cases where you have dates in string column in Excel, for example, you will need to “tell” our plugin which format to expect from your data source.

If you are creating a table using “Create a table by importing data from data source”, you should set “Date input format” before you create a table so that date values will be saved in the correct format in the database. You will see a “Date input format” dropdown in the column block that is a “Date” column type.

Video tutorial

How do Date columns work in wpDataTables?

What does a Date column look like? Example of a table using date columns

How do I set the date input format? Date column settings

Where can I learn more?