Time Period Selection

Introduction

The platform allows time period selection in various situations, such as:

• Dashboards
• Widgets
• Historical data visualization
• Reports

In all cases, the user interface presents a component like the following:

Choosing absolute and relative time periods

This component allows selecting a date range (including time, if applicable), both in absolute and relative form. Below is how this feature is used.

Absolute time periods

To specify an absolute time period, use the buttons to enter dates. You can choose a start date and time, as well as an end date and time.

When pressing the "Apply" button, the selector will display the selected period:

Relative time periods

To choose relative time periods, you can use the options bar on the right, as shown here, as well as enter arbitrary relative time expressions. The following image shows the list of predefined relative time options:

However, you can also enter any relative time period by typing it in the respective "From" and "To" fields, as shown in the following example:

The syntax for relative expressions is as follows:

• now always represents the current date and time.
• Then, you can add or subtract an arbitrary amount of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, or years.
  • s represents seconds
  • m represents minutes
  • h represents hours
  • d represents days
  • M represents months
  • y represents years
• Optionally, you can "round" the date to the beginning of the day, month, or year by adding any of the following modifiers:
  • /d represents the beginning of the day
  • /M represents the beginning of the month
  • /y represents the beginning of the year

Examples of relative expressions:

Mixed time periods

You can also use a combination of fixed and relative periods. For example, to indicate the time period "from January 1, 2021 until now", you can enter the absolute date "January 1, 2021" in the "from" field, and then the relative expression "now" in the "to" field.