* Including update date in reports

[Mark1834]

Is it possible to include the date an individual record was last updated in a Individual Summary or Family Group Report? It’s a useful indication of whether it’s somebody I’ve worked on recently, or not touched in months.

I couldn’t see it in the standard list of data references, and various experiments with INDI.LastUpdated() didn’t work. I can see a potential workaround if not (custom attribute written directly to GEDCOM file to avoid updating the very parameter I’m trying to extract) but hopefully I’ve just not created the reference correctly.

[LornaCraig]

In an individual summary report I have just tried using Options>Format and under the Heading section , Record line, edited it to add =LastUpdated() after the name and life dates. Seems to work.

[tatewise]

Tip: If you cannot find a Data Reference for what you want, try the Functions list.

[Mark1834]

Thanks folks, simple when you know how . I took the hint from Lorna's suggestion and just used =LastUpdated() as the data reference, and it works fine for individual data (Family Group and Individual Summary).

It displays as dd/mm/yyyy, which I don't like because of its ambiguity, but I'll play with options to see if I can convert it to the same format as event dates (dd mmm yyyy).

[tatewise]

FYI: =LastUpdated() is not a Data Reference but is a Function
Those two entities are what make up Expressions.
There is advice in the FHUG KB on Understanding ... those three.

I don't think it possible to reformat the Date & Time format of =LastUpdated() from its dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm

[Jane]

I believe the LastUpdated field returns the datetime in the format set as the Short Date Format for Windows. So unfortunately it's limited.

You can however do

Code: Select all

=Date(LastUpdated())

To extract the date from the datetime variable, as long as you don't need the hours and minutes.

[Mark1834]

Another related issue - I can format the page header of a Family Group Sheet report to "Family Group Sheet ...of John Smith and Mary Jones" using "=Title() =Record()" in report options, but it's a bit untidy. It's easy enough to correct in Word before I convert to PDF, but is there a way of suppressing the unnecessary "...of" reported by Record() please?

[tatewise]

I suspect the RightText(...) function will do that. e.g. =RightText( Record(), 4 )

[Mark1834]

Thanks - missed that, as RightText() is an FH7 feature, and the functions section on the KB that you referred me to earlier in the thread hasn't been updated for the new version yet.

[tatewise]

I presume you are referring to the Understanding Functions cross-reference to the FH V6 Help at https://www.family-historian.co.uk/help ... tions.html which has been kindly supplied by CP.
I have no idea if that will get updated to the FH V7 Help pages.
So in these circumstances always double-check the Help pages in FH V7 itself.

Tip: In the Help there is a Favourites tab in which I Add shortcuts to such as Functiuns (all)

[Mark1834]

FH7 Help is online at www.family-historian.co.uk/help/fh7.

[tatewise]

Ok, so it is just a matter of time to reference them from all the KB pages.
As a matter of interest, will the FH V6 Help page references from KB be retained alongside the new references for FH V7 Help pages where the Help is significantly different?

[ColeValleyGirl]

Ok, so it is just a matter of time to reference them from all the KB pages.
As a matter of interest, will the FH V6 Help page references from KB be retained alongside the new references for FH V7 Help pages where the Help is significantly different?

We'll retain separate links to both the HF6 help file and the FH7 help file (and both will be included when you search the KB).

[Mark1834]

Updated for the benefit of anybody searching this thread in the future - FH functions do not work in report headers and footers. They only accept literal text or the four "special values", =Page(), =Date(), =Title(), and =Record(). The only customisation appears to be the date format, which follows the format specified for Preferred Standard Date Format in FH Preferences for the benefit of our USA friends who write dates backwards .

I have also confirmed by experiment that =LastUpdated() returns the short date format specified in Windows settings, which are all numeric. I think the least ambiguous version is the ISO 8601 option of yyyy-mm-dd (e.g. 2021-01-31 for today), so I have changed my Windows settings to use that throughout.

[TimTreeby]

With a bit of experiment can get to last update to show as may be required without changing Windows Settings.

LastUpdateDate.PNG (12.23 KiB) Viewed 4416 times

LastUpdated uses : =DateAt(Year(LastUpdated()),Month(LastUpdated()),Day(LastUpdated()))
LastUpdated1 uses : =LastUpdated()

[tatewise]

Even that is over complicating things. No Windows adjustment is necessary.
As Jane said last week, simply use =Date(LastUpdated()) to display in dd mmm yyyy format.

That uses the Tools > Preferences > General tab Preferred Standard Date Format which can also be mmm dd, yyyy

[Mark1834]

Even better! Now that I have prepared a couple of reports, I think I actually prefer yyyy-mm-dd for displaying update information. It is unambiguous (for me anyway, as yyyy-dd-mm is really weird) and clearly stands out as distinctive and not confused with a fact date on skim reading.

[tatewise]

I don't recall anybody suggesting yyyy-dd-mm which as you say is weird.

It is possible to produce yyyy-mm-dd using FH functions without resorting to adjusting Windows settings:

=Year(LastUpdated())-=TextIf(Month(LastUpdated())<10,"0")=Month(LastUpdated())-=TextIf(Day(LastUpdated())<10,"0")=Day(LastUpdated())

It is unfortunate that the =TextIf( ... <10,"0") are needed to add a leading zero for single digit months or days.

[sbell95]

I have been trying to implement YYYY-MM-DD dates in my Record Title Format source template field so that I can sort chronologically by editions of a newspaper.

The following code works:

Code: Select all

{=Year(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}-{=Month(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}-{=Day(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}

But when I try and introduce the =TextIf function to include leading zeroes where appropriate, the source template editor tells me that it's an invalid expression:

Code: Select all

{=Year(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}-{=TextIf(Month(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)<10,"0")=Month(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}-{=TextIf(Day(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)<10,"0")=Day(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here?

[tatewise]

The explanation is that in many contexts functions can be placed next to each other.
But in Templates that need { brackets } around functions then every outermost function needs those { brackets }.
i.e. Wherever there is =Function(...) there must be {=Funcion(...)}
e.g.
{=TextIf(Month(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)<10,"0")=Month(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}
needs to be
{=TextIf(Month(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)<10,"0")}{=Month(%SOUR.~DT-ISSUE_DATE%)}

and similarly for the Day portion.

[Mark1834]

As an aside to reporting a minor bug with date formatting in a different context, I asked CP about supporting this ISO 8601 date format within FH, as it is the international standard for text representation of date in computer systems, and the only common format that sorts chronologically as text.

They didn’t seem that enthusiastic, so it looks like we’re stuck with jumping through these hoops for the foreseeable future.

[jimlad68]

.... supporting this ISO 8601 date format within FH, as it is the international standard for text representation of date in computer systems, and the only common format that sorts chronologically as text.

Wholeheartedly agree "sorting out of the box" and have used and pushed this for decades in my IT work. Also why I use PLACe order biggest first (e.g. country, state, city etc). It's a pity "the authorities" and probably the USA in particular don't use the ISO standards more. In the UK we are still not completely metric, and when I visit the USA it's like going back 70 years to my childhood!