Skip to main content
A metadata field of type date is displayed to a user as a date picker.
String field
Although dates are presented to users in the Box Web app as date-pickers, the actual dates are actually stored as in RFC3339 format, with up to millisecond precision. The time part of the date is always set to T00:00:00.000Z.

​
Create a date field

A date field can be added to a metadata template either when creating a metadata template, or when updating a template with the addField operation. The required attributes for a date field are a type, a displayName, and a key. 
{
  "scope": "enterprise",
  "displayName": "Contract",
  "fields": [
    {
      "type": "date",
      "key": "effective_date",
      "displayName": "Effective Date",
      "description": "The effective date when the contract goes in effect",
      "hidden": false
    }
  ]
}
Optionally, a description can be provided that is shown to a user in the UI, and the field can be set to hidden to hide it from users in the web and mobile apps.

​
Update a date field

A date template field can be updated by updating the template it belongs to. Updates to templates happen through operations to ensure that any template that is already assigned to a file or folder is updated as well. When updating a date metadata field, the only relevant operation is the editField operation, which can be used to change the field’s key, displayName, description, and hidden values. 
[
  {
    "op": "editField",
    "fieldKey": "effective_date",
    "data": {
      "displayName": "Effective Contract Date",
      "description": "The contract's effective date",
      "key": "effective_contract_date",
      "hidden": true
    }
  }
]
This will affect existing instances of this template.