Now() is not available in formula fields, only in automation formulas.
Yes, I know. But the formula was generated by your LLM.
Anyway, the real question is: how can I get the current time if Now() is not usable in formula fields?
Thanks for your answer.
Itās not possible to get the current time in the formula field. This is because it would need rerun the formula for all entities every minute, which would be a large computing load. (my guess)
But if you share what it is youāre trying to do, maybe thereās a workaround or a different, better way to do it.
Welcome to the Fibery community by the way! :))
Really, I donāt understand why. It makes sense that the formula will be evaluated at the time of row insert or update. It is the same for Today(): if what you wrote is true, the same should happen when Today() is used in the formula.
Yes, but it would then only update once a day, not once a minute. Taking less computing power.
Iām not sure how much computing it really takes, maybe someone from the team can comment on it.
But if you share what it is youāre trying to build, maybe thereās a different solution!
This is what happens. Every night around midnight UTC, any formulas containing Today() will be recalculated.
Yes, unfortunately AI will sometimes confabulate, but I can ask the devs if we can specifically exclude knowledge about Now() from the AI responsible for formula fields.
Your proposed field name suggests that your looking for something close to the existing Modification Date field.
Is there something missing from this existing functionality?
Suppose that I want to include the current timestamp inside a formula field for saving when this field has been compiled, I can use Modification Date for that.
Suppose that some day, I edit the row changing another field, for example, āTime spentā. Of course, the Modification Date will be updated, the formula field evaluated, and the value changed with the new Modification Date
But this is not what I want. I want this field unchanged!
So you want the creation date?
Iām not really understanding what youāre going for.
Just for your theoretical understanding though, formula fields are not updated when the entity is CREATED, they are updated any time they should be changed.
So if you use the āTodayā in a formula field, it will be updated every day, on all entities, without you changing anything.
If you want to trigger something that happened only when entity (row) is created, you should use automation, and trigger for when itās created, to update a field.
Itās simple: I want that my formula field contains a timestamp value of āwhen it was entered for the first time o when it was updatedā. No automation after the āentryā or āupdateā moment.
Thereās some conceptual misunderstanding on formula fields I think. Iām just not sure where.
You donāt create the formula on each row. You make the formula field, and itās the same formula for all rows, and gets calculated any time the value of the formula changes.
Is that part clear? Iām still not exactly sure what it is you are trying to achieve. Can you go through the step by step? Not just the how of what youāre trying to achieve, but also the why. Maybe if we understand why youāre trying to do it like, thereās a different way to do it.
Suppose my row is a Purchase order.
I have a formula field containing the values ( āqtyā * āpriceā * āconversionrateā), where conversionrate is the change applied from one currency to another.
Itās important to āstampā the exact moment, and the resulting string must stay unchanged until at least one of the three fields involved is changed.
Something like āThe amount ( āqtyā * āpriceā * āconversionrateā) has been determined on 2025-07-20 09:51.123Zā
Where is the value of conversionrate coming from in your example?
As @RonMakesSystems says, I think your understanding of how formulas work is maybe not quite right.
Perhaps an automation is what you need ā¦
Just to be clear, this is how formulas work. If any value used in a formula changes, it will be recalculated. If not, it wonāt.
This is why we donāt allow Now(), because its value changes every second
Iāve built something similar to this with currency conversions. Iām not home now but Iāll make a short video explaining how it works, and share a template tomorrow.
@Fred Hereās a video showing how to build a orders manager with different currencies. This is what I understood you were going for from what you explained above. If Iām mistaken, let me know!
Video: https://youtu.be/NRrnEwkSED8
Template: https://shared.fibery.io/t/d7de2232-88b0-42f2-9203-dada11fcbd38-orders
@RonMakesSystems Great example Ron! Inspiring. However, my initial intent was only to save (automatically) a timestamp in a text field to remember when it was last edited, independently of what happens to the entire row (where we have Modification Date, although not yet for rich text). Probably I have to define an automation for that, if I have understood well. Thanks for your support!
Iām glad it was helpful! Yeah I wasnāt sure exactly the use case, but I thought maybe seeing something built out could help understand the concepts. Good luck!!
I think you want an Automation that is triggered when any of [some particular fields] are updated, and whose Action puts the value of Today() Now() in your āLast Update Dateā field (which hopefully is a DateTime field).