How to check for an empty date field?

[cvuppala]

Hi,

I have a requirement where I need to check for an empty date field. I do not see a direct way of doing this. One idea I have is to create a workflow variable (Date & Time) and set the default to "blank". Compare the date field against this variable. 

Is this the right approach?

Please advise,

Thank you

[emha]

do you need to check it in forms or workflow?

[lakshminarayana · Accepted solution]

Hi ‌,

you can use set a condition action to check date value is empty or not.

Thanks,

‌

[cvuppala]

Workflow

[emha]

then both ways, yours and ‌'s bellow are valid.

[greenawayr]

Hi,

I've just been looking at this in Workflow 2016 and both Run If and Set a Condition do not allow you to select "is empty" when checking against a date field. I think only string values are allowed to checked for "empty".

‌, is this by design? Are there older versions of workflow that do allow "is empty" against a Date type.

[emha]

have you checked with "Value" and date variable reference or with "Workflow Data" and date variable selected from dropdown?

the former allows to check for emptiness, the later not (at least in NW2013)

[akrasheninnikov]

I think that's because DateTime type in .NET Framework is not nullable by default, so you can check for null in a CAML query with IsNull or IsNotNull (before you assign a value to a variable), but when you already have a datetime value, it's never empty.

[greenawayr]

Querying the column directly

[emha]

does it allow you to change Condition dropdown to something like 'if any value equals value", like in former version(s)?