[update: this macro has been updated to fix a small discrepancy in the “most recent X” filters. If you downloaded it before 2019-03-01, please download the new version]

It’s 2019. Hooray. The change of a year is one of my least favourite things, professionally speaking, because January 2nd is when you find out how much stuff breaks because somebody (possibly you) has hard coded a date somewhere in all your pipelines. Suddenly, all your dashboards are blank because somebody’s put filter Year=2018 on, or all the YoY calculations are off because it’s looking at [2018]/[2017] instead of [CurrentYear]/[PreviousYear].

Sure enough, I spent a few days in January tracing through several Alteryx workflows and looking for rogue date filters. Pretty much all of them could be fixed by changing 2018 to DatePartYear(DateTimeNow()). But it was a long and frustrating process to identify all the filters which needed to remain static (e.g. filter out everything before 2018 because older data is in a different format and needs to be treated differently) vs. filters which needed to be dynamic (e.g. filter to the current year’s data to show YTD values), and then replacing the filter code in the custom filter section.

Most date filters I found were pretty similar, and fit into one of a handful of categories:

1. Filter to this period (e.g. if it’s 2019 right now, give me all of 2019)
2. Filter to this period-to-date (e.g. if it’s 2019 right now, give me all of 2019 up to today)
3. Filter to most recent full / completed period (e.g. if it’s 2019 right now, give me all of 2018)
4. Filter to the previous / next 12 months
5. Filter to the past / the future

…so to save myself some work in January 2020, I’ve built an Alteryx macro which handles all these examples. You can get it here! Click on the image, or copy the full link below:

https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/Dynamic-Date-Filter/5c3c4da90462d70ba8a66d99

Just hit download and stick it in your standard macro path. It’s automatically set up to appear in your preparation tools.

And here’s how it looks in your workflow:

It works much like a regular filter tool, with T and F outputs based on a filter condition. But instead of coding up a calculation like “DatePartYear([MyDateField]) = DatePartYear(DateTimeNow()) AND [MyDateField] <= DateTimeNow()” for a Year-to-Date filter, you can simply tick the Year-to-Date option (and see a description of what that particular filter option will do). I built this with scheduled workflows in mind so that you can spend less time copy/pasting chunks of date filter code, and less time trawling through custom filter code when the year changes and the workflows break.

One caveat: this macro works at the day level, rather than the specific time level – so if it’s 7pm on March 19th when you run the workflow and select Year-to-Date, the filter will include future values from later in the evening on March 19th, not just the ones up to 7pm.

The way it works is by selecting the relevant part of a looooong IF statement, which has all possible filter options from the input tools. If you’re interested, this is the full set of IF statement formulae:

IF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Current Week’ THEN
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) >= DateTimeAdd(
DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),
(IF ToNumber(DateTimeFormat(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),”%w”)) = 0 THEN
ToNumber(DateTimeFormat(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),”%w”))-7
ELSE 0-ToNumber(DateTimeFormat(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),”%w”)) ENDIF),
“day”)
AND
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) <= DateTimeAdd(
DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),
(IF ToNumber(DateTimeFormat(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),”%w”)) = 0 THEN 0 ELSE
7-ToNumber(DateTimeFormat(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),”%w”)) ENDIF) ,
“day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Current Month’ THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))
AND
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Current Quarter’ THEN
(IF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 3 THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 3
ELSEIF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 6 THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 3 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 6
ELSEIF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 9 THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 6 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 9
ELSE DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 9 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 12 ENDIF
)
AND
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Current Year’ THEN
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Month-to-date’ THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))
AND
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))
AND
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) <= DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Quarter-to-date’ THEN
(IF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 3 THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 3
ELSEIF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 6 THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 3 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 6
ELSEIF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 9 THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 6 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 9
ELSE DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 9 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 12 ENDIF
)
AND
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))
AND
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) <= DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Year-to-date’ THEN
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))
AND
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) <= DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Most recent complete month’ THEN

DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = (IF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) = 1 THEN 12 ELSE DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))-1 ENDIF)
AND
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) =
(IF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) = 1 THEN DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))-1 ELSE DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) ENDIF)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Most recent complete quarter’ THEN

IF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 3
THEN DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 9 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 12 AND DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))-1

ELSEIF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 6
THEN DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 3 AND DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))

ELSEIF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 9
THEN DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 3 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 6 AND DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))

ELSEIF DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) <= 12 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)) = DateTimeMonth(DateTimeAdd(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”), 1, “day”))
THEN DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”))> 9 AND DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) <= 9 AND DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))

ELSE !ISNULL(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) OR ISNULL(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) ENDIF
//returns all date as a clue the filter doesn’t work

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Most recent complete year’ THEN
DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeYear(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))-1

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Last 12 months up to and including today’ THEN
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) > DateTimeAdd(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”), -1, “year”)
AND
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) <= DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Next 12 months from today’ THEN
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) >= DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)
AND
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) < DateTimeAdd(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”), 1, “year”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Everything before today (including today)’ THEN
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) <= DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Everything before today (not including today)’ THEN
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) < DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Everything after today (including today)’ THEN
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) >= DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘Everything after today (not including today)’ THEN
DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”) > DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”)

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘All days of the same date across years’ THEN
DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeMonth(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))
AND
DateTimeDay(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) = DateTimeDay(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”))

ELSEIF [FilterOptionSelected] = ‘All days of the same weekday’ THEN
DateTimeFormat(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”),”%w”) = DateTimeFormat(DateTimeTrim([DateValueUsed], “day”),”%w”)

ELSE
!ISNULL(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) OR ISNULL(DateTimeTrim([IncomingDate], “day”)) ENDIF
//returns all dates in range without filtering anything just in case