Selectec: Time Custom Node

Custom Nodes are a new feature of Square 9’s GlobalCapture and GlobalAction and are available from version 2.3.x. Custom Nodes are a replacement for Call Assembly nodes and extend the functionality of GlobalCapture and GlobalAction but in way that is more familiar to workflow designers than the Call Assembly nodes.

Dates and times can be one of the more frustrating aspects of designing automated processes. Although they have structure, that structure is built from many formats. To further complicate matters a format for one region can result in a different result to one from another region, for example take the date format: 01/02/2021.

• In the UK this represents the 1st of February 2020.
• In the US this represents the 2nd of January 2020.

This can lead to mistakes for a process designed to handle multi-region documents.

The Time Custom Node does not make that particular problem go away, as it is largely impossible to resolve automatically, but it does make it much easier and clearer to read dates in your workflows. It achieves this by employing up to three different parsing methods:

1. Intelligent – Utilises Microsoft.Recognizers.Text to provides robust recognition and resolution of dates and times, expressed in multiple languages. Full support for Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Turkish, and Hindi. Partial support for Dutch, Japanese, Korean, and Swedish. Microsoft.Recognizers.Text powers pre-built entities in both LUIS: Language Understanding Intelligent Service and Microsoft Bot Framework.
2. Exact – Utilises the .Net ParseExact method which allows you to provide the formats of the date/time being read.
3. Default – Utilises the .Net TryParse method which lacks the preciseness of ParseExact but can still resolve many common date and time formats.