topic Re: Issue with a date time variable in Workato Pros Discussion Board

Issue with a date time variable

Sonia — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 10:00:23 GMT

Hi, having bit of trouble with a data time variable, my datapill is in this format: 2026-01-29T06:01:28.000000-05:00 and using all possible hints from AI to convert it to YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM but it just returns: Error calculating input for field 'date':
wrong number of arguments (given 1
expected 0)

I'm only just starting my journey with workato

Re: Issue with a date time variable

RussellJ — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 10:42:25 GMT

Hi Sonia

You don't say how you're currently trying to do the conversion, but have you tried using the "strftime" formula? Documented here - https://docs.workato.com/en/formulas/date-formulas.html#strftime

Russell

Re: Issue with a date time variable

Sonia — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:11:36 GMT

I did try both strftime and to date

Re: Issue with a date time variable

rajeshjanapati — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:40:46 GMT

Hi @Sonia,

Yes, I too getting errors with strftime and .to_date and .to_time formula, but we need to walk through some work around solution with formula. but for instant thought, please check the below solutions.

Re: Issue with a date time variable

francbaviello — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 16:27:33 GMT

Hi @Sonia , this is the correct solution formula:

="2026-01-29T06:01:28.000000-05:00".to_time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M")

where "2026-01-29T06:01:28.000000-05:00" is the value of field datapill

Re: Issue with a date time variable

gary1 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 16:51:24 GMT

This is the way.

Re: Issue with a date time variable

gary1 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 19:56:25 GMT

I'd like to explain why this didn't work and why @francbaviello provided the correct solution.

Your input value is a string data type. The string value is formatted as a standard ISO timestamp.

ISO timestamps can easily be converted to a date/time data type by using to_time.

strftime only accepts date/time data types as input. If you pass a string, it will fail. If you pass a date (to_date), it will fail.

You must go from string data type > date/time data type > strftime

"2026-01-29T06:01:28.000000-05:00".strftime() ## this will fail because strftime does not accept string "2026-01-29T06:01:28.000000-05:00".to_date.strftime() ## this will fail because strftime does not accept date "2026-01-29T06:01:28.000000-05:00".to_time.strftime() ## this will succeed because the input has been converted to date/time

Re: Issue with a date time variable

shivakumara — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:21:36 GMT

Hi @Sonia ,

One more question: since your input is in Eastern Time (US & Canada) (UTC‑5:00), should the output also be based on the same time zone?
Here I am adding another solution:

Thanks and regards,
Shivakumara K A

Re: Issue with a date time variable

RussellJ — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:57:10 GMT

Appreciated the detailed explanation Gary - thanks for your time on this 👍