Configure Database Date Format

The database date format is determined by the Remote Prefs configuration in your database. This determines how Specify exports and handles dates nearly everywhere in both Specify 6 and 7.

Date pickers within the application will be based on your browser’s locale (unless you disable ‘User accessible full date picker’ in the Specify 7 preferences.

WorkBench and Batch Edit data sets must conform to the date format specified in the Remote Preferences file below. Before changing the date format, please make sure all pending changes and data sets have been uploaded or committed.


  1. Go to the User Tools menu and navigate to App Resources

  2. To change the database date format, access the app resources function as an admin user by clicking on the user name at the top of the page. Then under the Global Resources there should be a Remote Preferences resource.

    From here, find the ui.formatting.scrdateformat property.

    Find the ui.formatting.scrdateformat property. In many examples, it defaults to:

    ui.formatting.scrdateformat=dd/MM/yyyy
    

    We strongly recommend switching to the ISO format:

    ui.formatting.scrdateformat=yyyy-MM-dd
    

    This format (yyyy-MM-dd) is the internationally recognized ISO 8601 standard and avoids ambiguity across locales.

    It can be set to one of the following values (note that yyyy-MM-dd is the ISO 8601 standard and is highly recommended):

    Format pattern Example ISO?
    MM dd yy 06 05 25
    MM dd yyyy 06 05 2025
    MM-dd-yy 06-05-25
    MM-dd-yyyy 06-05-2025
    MM.dd.yy 06.05.25
    MM.dd.yyyy 06.05.2025
    MM/dd/yy 06/05/25
    MM/dd/yyyy 06/05/2025
    dd MM yy 05 06 25
    dd MM yyyy 05 06 2025
    dd MMM yyyy 05 Jun 2025
    dd-MM-yy 05-06-25
    dd-MM-yyyy 05-06-2025
    dd-MMM-yyyy 05-Jun-2025
    dd.MM.yy 05.06.25
    dd.MM.yyyy 05.06.2025
    dd.MMM.yyyy 05.Jun.2025
    dd/MM/yy 05/06/25
    dd/MM/yyyy 05/06/2025
    yyyy MM dd 2025 06 05
    yyyy-MM-dd 2025-06-05 ISO-8601
    yyyy.MM.dd 2025.06.05
    yyyy/MM/dd 2025/06/05

    Tip: Switching to yyyy-MM-dd ensures unambiguous, internationally recognized dates.

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Is there a way for the fancy date picker to be disabled on user preference level, as to avoid being overridden by the browser settings?

Hi @fedoras,

You can establish a default user preferences file in the App Resources.

We have instructions available on how to do this on GitHub:

You can disable these two options:

  • Use accessible full date picker
  • Use accessible month picker

This will make it use the Specify default date picker which will be based on the format established in the guide above!

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