Calculate Calendar Quarter at start of Workflow

[#1]

I have a scheduled workflow that will be kicking off once a month.  I need to know what the Calendar quarter is at the start of the workflow (standard Jan-Feb-Mar = Q1 etc.)  and store it in a workflow variable.  Any ideas?   Am I limited to the list of inline functions provided in the expression builder or can I put any javascript there?

[powersj1 · Accepted solution]

You have a couple options.

1.  You could follow the following thread to be able use ceiling and calculate a quarter CEILING(fn-FormatDate(Current Date, "MM")/3).  They don't give me access to the Query XML action, so I couldn't try it out.

Adding functions to Nintex Workflows with XLST transformations - Part 2 (COUNT, FLOOR, CEILING, ROUN...

2.  You could use a couple of regular expressions.  Make some parallel actions (optional).  Add the four regular expressions, one for each quarter.  I used the input text of the variable Month, but you could just put the following expression in there and save a step: fn-FormatDate(Current Date, "MM").

3.  You could use a switch.  Create two variables, one for month and one for quarter.  Both single line of text.

Use the Set variable action to set month equal to fn-FormatDate(Current Date, "MM").

Create a switch and create a branch of 01-12 (the leading zero is important).  Then in each branch set quarter equal to whatever you'd like.

4.  You could use the string builder.  It would take a bunch of nested replace functions, but it is doable.

fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-Replace(fn-FormatDate(Current Date, "MM"),"01","Q1"),"02","Q1"),"03","Q1"),"041","Q2"),"05","Q2"),"06","Q2"),"07","Q3"),"08","Q3"),"09","Q3"),"10","Q4"),"11","Q4"),"12","Q4")

[achawda]

4th option worked great for me

[carlosn]

I ran into this same issue.  I was not overly fond of the four solutions presented, so I kept looking for alternatives, and believe I have a fifth solution.

You can utilize a Query Excel Services block. I created a "WorkflowHelper.xlsx" in my Shared Documents. I put the fancy math into the Excel spreadsheet, and then just query the spreadsheet. The query block allows you to update cell values before retrieving the results.

I don't need to run this very often, so I don't see it becoming a resource issue. However, I don't know what the impact of this method would be if the workflow were to run often.