[✅ Solution] Date field parser is re-interpreting my formatted string

[Luis]

I am building a booking app on Tape and encounter a critical issue with the Tape Date field. Let me explain the steps to replicate:

1. I receive a payload with “requestedDates” (in ISO 8601 format). For this test, I only added one, but most times it will have more than one date requested.

2. After receiving the payload, I create a new script to format the date to my timezone.

3. Then I update the date field with the “formDate” variable

THE PROBLEM

The issue is that the Tape field is not putting the correct date/time in the date field. In this scenario:

"2025-09-09T22:00:00.000Z" is formatted to my timezone into 2025-09-09 18:00:00 (using date_fns). However, when I go to the record date field, it is showing this:

That is the incorrect date/time. It appears that Tape’s date field is re-interpreting my formatted string and not putting the correct date/time.

I also tried inputting the ISO 8601-formatted version to update the Tape date field, but I still got the wrong date/time result.

The only workaround I found was to add the formatted date into a “single line text” field. No matter what I attempted, the Tape date field did not parse the date correctly. For the booking app I’m creating, this is absolutely critical since it is showing the incorrect date/time for a booked appointment.

What am I doing wrong?

[Jason]

Hi Luis

So this is one of these really confusing date/time things between automations and records, it looks like you are doing everything correctly however in fact what I believe you need to do is add the date/time to the record as UTC (so in other words do not convert it) the record Date field will then convert the time to your local time automatically.

[Luis]

Thanks, Jason. Regretably, I tried your UTC suggestion, and it still didn’t work. I have no idea why, because it looks to be correct.

I added a test for this on the Tape Partners Workspace here (this links to the automation). I also added a text field for “Formatted Date Text” and “UTC Date”, and they both show the accurate date/time. The Tape Date field is not. I honestly have no clue.

[Luis]

Thanks, @Jason, for providing the solution.

The correct way is to add the date/time to the record as UTC, and then in the date field, you add the UTC date in a calculation, not Set date.

(screenshot provided by Jason)

As Jason mentioned:

• Set date, does exactly that, sets the date, not the time, and therefore the UTC time defaults to 00:00
• Using the calculation, sets the date and the time in one go.

[Martin_E]

Hey,

How is it collecting the ‘local’ time?

When I update the date/time in UTC it shows in the UK timezone which makes sense as I’m in the UK.

But if I log into an account where I’ve changed the timezone is EST and even use a VPN to show me in EST timezone I still see the timezone in the UK timezone.

[Luis]

Are you referring to Preferences > Profile > Time Zone or the time zones in the automations? In automations, I most often convert the time to my time zone using date_fns so I can get the accurate date/times, then update dates with Calculation (as screenshot above).

If you are still having issues, we can create a test workspace on the Tape Partners Workspace, do some debugging, and find out what’s going on.

[Martin_E]

If I wanted to build a workspace that I would hand out to other users but those users will be in different timezones across America. I will have a settings app to know their timezone, something like “America/New York” and will populate timezones like that but currently I don’t see the datetime fields changing based on location regardless of browser location etc.
When I try and populate a date in the correct timezone it will just add the timezone incorrectly.
I’ll create a video a bit later showing what I mean.