# Timestamping responses

**URL:** <https://forum.getodk.org/t/timestamping-responses/11825>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** odk-collect\
**Created:** [February 15, 2018, 1:36pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/timestamping-responses/11825 "2018-02-15T13:36:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![Sebastian\_Therman](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/sebastian_therman/32/3409_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Therman](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Sebastian_Therman)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 11:28am UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/timestamping-responses/11825/4 "2018-04-11T11:28:30Z")

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Thank you, Hélenè!

The sample form was exactly what was needed - I had tried combining conditional once(now()) before, but didn't get it to work. This is already a workable solution, though a native function would of course be easier to use.

I was hoping to get ISO8601 timestamps matching those generated by "start" and "end" , such as  
`2018-04-11T14:02:37.495+03`  
My calculation is therefore  
`if(${name} = '', '', once(format-date-time(now(), "%Y-%m-%eT%H:%M:%S.%3")))`  
... but the timezone is still missing, however, and format-date-time doesn't recognize the escapes `Z` or `z`. This isn't a huge problem, but is there some easy solution?

Thanks,

Sebastian

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