Formatting variables

In Email and PDF communications, EngageOne™Communicate allows you to specify variables that are displayed in different formats depending on the specified locale. This is useful because these variables are formatted differently in different countries. For example, the number 56025 is written as 56,025 in England or the USA, but 56.025 in Germany and 56 025 in Sweden.

The types of variable that can be formatted in this way are as follows:

number
time
date
datetime

When a new data source is uploaded, EngageOne™Communicate recognizes fields of these types and adds an appropriate label as a property in the data source structure.

You can then select the appropriate locale from a dropdown list of options.

Further customization can be performed using Advanced Mode.

The following shows an example of uploading a data source with a selected locale:

Add Data Source screen with Local File selected

The Data Standard dropdown allows you to select the locale.

Note: The column in an input CSV file (or property for a JSON file) should be formatted in a consistent way. For example, if a date is formatted as mm/dd/yy (and the input format is defined as such), all the rows in that data source should have the same format. If any change is made, it must apply to all rows.

Note: If Communicate cannot parse the values (according to the input format for type date, datetime, time or number), it does not format it but instead renders it as a string value (from the data source when it was uploaded).

Formatting numeric variables

As described above, the number data type can be formatted according to the selected locale.

However, selecting the locale does not modify the number of decimal places (the maximum supported number of decimal places is 20). This behaviour can be changed by specifying custom settings.

To specify custom settings, open the data source by clicking on it. Then click the Data Schema tab followed by the Advanced Mode button. The data schema is now shown in JSON format, which you can edit.

Note: Take care when editing the JSON code; ensure that any changes have the correct syntax.

You can now define the following:

customThousandSeparator
customDecimalSeparator
customDecimalPlaces (default: 0)

These settings will override the default locale format.

An example of a JSON file that defines custom numeric formatting is shown below:

{
    "customDecimalPlaces": 4, 
    "customDecimalSeparator": "?",
    "customThousandSeparator": ",", 
    "location": "number", 
    "name": "number", 
    "type": "number" 
},

The example result is as follows:

Example result

Formatting time variables

As described above, the time data type can be formatted according to the selected locale. However, this behaviour can be changed by specifying custom settings.

When uploading a data source, EngageOne™Communicate will try to define the input format of any time data. If this data is too complex, Communicate will label it as a string type and you must manually provide the input format and change the type to time.

Note: If you want to use time formatting for UNIX timestamp data, you must define the input format as X and the type as time.

To specify custom settings, open the data source by clicking on it. The click the Data Schema tab followed by the Advanced Mode button. The data schema is now shown in JSON format, which you can edit.

Note: Take care when editing the JSON code; ensure that any changes have the correct syntax.

You can now define the following:

inputFormat
customTimeFormat

These settings will override the default locale format.

An example of a JSON file that defines custom time formatting is shown below:

{
     "customTimeFormat": "h:mm:ss A",
     "inputFormat": "X",
     "location": "time",
     "name": "time",
     "type": "time"
 }

The example result is as follows:

Example result

Formatting date variables

As described above, the date data type can be formatted according to the selected locale. However, this behaviour can be changed by specifying custom settings.

Note: If you want to use time formatting for UNIX timestamp data, you must define the input format as X and the type as date.

You can select from three date format options as follows:

Format Options

Note: Take care when editing the JSON code; ensure that any changes have the correct syntax.

You can now define the following:

inputFormat
customShortDateFormat
customLongDateFormat

These settings will override the default locale format.

An example of a JSON file that defines custom date formatting is shown below:

{
     "customLongDateFormat": "DD@MMM@YYYY",
     "customShortDateFormat": "YYYY+MM+DD",
     "inputFormat": "DD-MM-YYYY",
     "location": "date",
     "name": "date",
     "type": "date"
 },

The example result for customShortDateFormat is as follows:

Example result

Formatting datetime variables

As described above, the datetime data type can be formatted according to the selected locale. However, this behaviour can be changed by specifying custom settings.

When uploading a data source, Communicate will try to define the input format of any time data. If this data is too complex, Communicate will label it as a string type and you must manually provide the input format and change the type to datetime.

Note: If you want to use time formatting for UNIX timestamp data, you must define the input format as X and the type as datetime.

Note: Take care when editing the JSON code; ensure that any changes have the correct syntax.

You can now define the following:

inputFormat
customShortDateFormat
customLongDateFormat
customTimeFormat

These settings will override the default locale format.