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