Canvas is terrible at parsing dates/times

CraigEliason

I'm an instructor setting up assignments in Canvas. Can Canvas get better at interpreting what I type in for due dates and times? 

If I type "9/20" instead of September 20 it assumes I mean 9:20am today. 

If I type "9/20/23 8am" it again assumes I mean 9:20am today. (?)

If I type "9/20 8:00am" it assumes I mean 9am today. (??)

If I type "9/20 8:00" instead of September 20 of this year it assumes I meant 1908. (!!)

No other software I know of these days struggles with this!

Chris_Hofer

Hi there, @CraigEliason ...

There are two things I think will help you as you put due dates into your assignments.

• You can always click on the calendar icon to the right of the date field to select your date and input the time.  (This is what I always do.)  I realize it's maybe not as quick as typing in text like you are doing, but it's a good alternative to make sure the info you are putting in that box is accurate.
• If you hover your mouse over the text boxes for those dates, you'll get a little help flag that shows you exactly what format those boxes are looking for.  As an example:
  
  So....if you input 2023-09-20 08:00, you should get the results of what you're looking for.  The time also works for military time...so if you wanted it due at 2:30 p.m., you could put in 14:30 for the time.

Hope this will be of some help to you!