Easier ways to enter dates in TBO and ClientBase

There are some useful shortcuts for entering dates in Trams Back Office and ClientBase.

Date always display in the MM/DD/YYYY format (if your computer is set to use the U.S. date format.[1] but it’s not necessary to enter the date the same way. Try using some of the following shortcuts to make entering dates easier and faster.

If you need to enter a specific date, you can use slashes as you see them displayed. It is not necessary to enter any preceding zeroes or the century. For example, for January 1, 2018, you can simply type 1/1/18. TBO and CB will change the date to 01/01/2018.

Another easy way to select dates is by using the pop-up calendar. In TBO, simply double-click on any date field to display the calendar. In CB, click on the calendar icon next to the date field.

There are several even shorter ways to enter dates without using any slashes. Simply use two digits for month, day and year. If you’re used to entering dates in a GDS such as Sabre, you can also use those formats for entering dates in TBO and CB[1].

For example:

Description	Entry	Result
Month, day and year	092207	09/22/2007
Month and day	0714	07/14/2019
Day of this month	15	03/15/2019
GDS Format	15APR	04/15/2019
GDS Format with Year	15APR18	04/15/2018

Using date formulas.

Date formulas are a great way to quickly calculate dates. These are particularly helpful when saving queries to run reports on a regular basis or if you just want to quickly enter today’s date.

The simplest use for date formulas is to enter today’s date. By just typing “=”, the programs will enter today’s date. You can also quickly calculate days before or after today by using the plus (“+”) or minus (“-”) signs.

For example:

Entry	Description	Example
=	Today’s Date	03/07/2019
=+7	Seven Days from Today	03/14/2019
=–7	Seven Days Before Today	02/28/2019

There are many more advanced to use date formulas to make running reports and generating queries easier. I’ll go into more details about date formulas in an upcoming blog entry.