Supported Date & Time Formats
Accepted formats for the scheduled_at column in your Google Sheet.
BuddyActivity parses the scheduled_at column to determine when each activity should go live. The value must be a recognisable date and time string. The plugin uses PHP's strtotime() function internally, so any format that PHP can parse will work.
Accepted Formats
| Format | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|
2024-03-20 09:00:00 | 2024-03-20 09:00:00 | Recommended. MySQL datetime format. |
2024-03-20 09:00 | 2024-03-20 09:00 | Seconds omitted — defaults to :00. |
2024-03-20 | 2024-03-20 | Date only — defaults to 00:00:00 (midnight). |
20/03/2024 09:00:00 | 20/03/2024 09:00:00 | DD/MM/YYYY format. |
03/20/2024 09:00:00 | 03/20/2024 09:00:00 | MM/DD/YYYY format (US style). |
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (ISO 8601 / MySQL datetime). It is unambiguous and works reliably across all locales.Timezone
BuddyActivity interprets all scheduled_at values using the timezone configured in your WordPress settings (Settings → General → Timezone). Make sure your WordPress timezone is set correctly before scheduling activities.
Past Dates
Rows with a scheduled_at time in the past will be processed immediately on the next sync. This is useful for back-filling activity, but be aware that a large number of past-dated rows will all run at once.
Invalid Dates
If BuddyActivity cannot parse a scheduled_at value, the row will be skipped and an error will be logged in the Sync Logs. Common causes:
- Google Sheets auto-formatting the cell as a date display rather than plain text.
- Ambiguous formats like
01/02/03that PHP cannot resolve reliably. - Missing year or missing time component.
scheduled_at column as "Plain text" in Google Sheets (Format → Number → Plain text) to prevent Google from auto-converting date values.