Gravity Forms Partial Dates Setup Guide

The Gravity Forms Partial Dates Premium Add-on adds a Partial Date field for answers that are not a full date (month and year, day and month, or year only) and gives the standard Date field a year range counted from this year and month names. This guide covers installation, every setting, how values are saved and shown, merge tags, calculations, conditional logic and answers to common questions.

When to use a partial date

A full date is the wrong question when people do not know the day, or when you do not want the year:

• Month and year: employment and education history, the month someone moved in, a membership start, the month a policy renews, the month a car was first registered.
• Day and month: birthdays for a loyalty club or a newsletter without asking for an age, anniversaries, a yearly service date.
• Year only: year built, year of manufacture, year of qualification, year of birth when you only need an age band.

The usual workarounds each have a catch. Two Number fields lose the link between the parts and accept 31 for February. A text field with an input mask such as 99/9999 shows the right shape but accepts 13/2026. A full Date field forces people to invent a day, and a day you did not need is a day you have to store and protect. A Partial Date field asks only for what you need and checks it properly.

Requirements and installation

1. WordPress 6.5 or newer, PHP 7.4 or newer and Gravity Forms 2.8 or newer (tested with 2.9 and 3.1).
2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the zip file and click Install Now, then Activate.
3. Go to Forms → Settings → Partial Dates, enter your license key and click Activate License. The Partial Date button appears in Advanced Fields and the Date field settings appear once the licence is active.

The add-on needs no account with any outside service and sends no data anywhere. The only requests it makes are the GravityExtra licence check and update check.

Step 1: add a Partial Date field

Open the form in the form editor and click Partial Date in Advanced Fields. The new field is set to month and year with drop-downs. Give it a label that says what you are asking, for example “Started your last job” or “Your birthday”, and add a description if a hint helps (“Month and year are enough”).

Step 2: choose the parts and how they look

The settings are on the General tab, below the description.

• Date parts: Month and year, Day and month (no year), or Year only.
• Shown as: drop-downs, or number boxes with a small Day, Month or Year label under each box. Number boxes open the number keyboard on phones.
• Months: names in your site language (April), short names (Apr) or numbers (04).
• Show the parts the other way round: year before month, or month before day, for the order your visitors expect.

Step 3: decide which years can be chosen

Month and year and Year only fields have a year range. Each end is either a year or a number of years from this year:

You type	Meaning
1950	that year, always
-80	80 years before this year (moves on every 1 January)
0	this year
+5	five years after this year
empty	100 years ago (From) or 10 years ahead (To)

Choose Newest first or Oldest first for the year drop-down. Newest first suits most history questions, because recent years are the most common answers. The range is also checked on the server, so a year outside it is refused even if a request is put together by hand.

Now or earlier, now or later

The Allowed setting adds one more rule. Now or earlier refuses months after the current month (or years after this year for Year only): right for “Started”, “Qualified” or “Built”. Now or later refuses months before the current month: right for “Available from” or “Moving in”. “Now” is the current month in your site’s time zone. Day and month fields have no year, so this rule does not apply to them.

Step 4: choose how the value is shown

Shown in entries and e-mails as sets the display format used on the entry screen, in the entry list, in {all_fields} and plain field merge tags, and in the CSV export. The list only offers formats that fit the chosen parts:

Parts	Formats
Month and year	April 2026, Apr 2026, 04/2026, 04.2026, 2026-04
Day and month	17 April, April 17, 17 Apr, 17/04, 04/17, 17.04
Year only	2026

Month names follow the site language set in Settings → General, so a site in French shows avril, a site in German April.

How values are saved

Whatever the display format, each value is saved in one short form based on the international date standard:

Parts	Saved as
Month and year	2026-04
Day and month	–04-17
Year only	2026

This keeps entries sortable in date order, makes search and conditional logic simple, and keeps feeds and exports predictable. The two dashes in front of a day and month are how the standard writes a date without a year. A default value or a dynamically populated value uses the same form: set the default value to 2026-04, or pass ?started=2026-04 in the link when “Allow field to be populated dynamically” is on.

What is checked when the form is sent

The drop-downs only offer valid choices, but a form can be sent without them, so every rule is checked again on your server. The add-on builds the value from the parts the browser sent and refuses:

• a half-filled date: “Please choose the year as well.” (or the month, or the day);
• a month outside 1 to 12, or anything that is not a whole number;
• a day that does not exist in the month, such as 31 April. 29 February is accepted for a day and month, because some years have it;
• a year outside the range: “Please choose a year from 1976 to 2026.”;
• a month after or before now when Allowed is set: “Please choose November 2026 or earlier.”

Write your own message in the field’s Custom Validation Message setting to replace all of them. Required works as usual: a required field must have every part; an optional field may be left completely empty, but not half filled.

Merge tags

A plain merge tag such as {Started your last job:3} gives the display format. Add a modifier for one part:

Modifier	Gives	Example
:iso	saved form	2026-04
:year	year	2026
:month / :monthnum	month, two digits / without zero	04 / 4
:monthname / :monthshort	month name / short name	April / Apr
:day / :daynum	day (day and month)	07 / 7
:mmdd / :ddmm	day and month for mailing tools	04/07 / 07/04
:yearsago	whole years until now	7
:monthsago	whole months until now (month and year)	89

Use :mmdd when a newsletter tool wants a birthday as MM/DD, and :iso when a feed or webhook needs the saved form. Parts a field does not have give an empty result: a birthday has no :year.

Calculations

In a Number field with Enable Calculation, use the same modifiers: {Started your last job:3:yearsago} gives the whole years since that month, {Year built:4:year} the year, and {Moving in:5:monthsago} the months between that month and now (negative for a future month). Without a modifier a month and year or year only field counts as its year, and a day and month field as MMDD (417 for 17 April). The browser shows the result as soon as the parts are chosen, and Gravity Forms works it out again on the server when the form is sent.

Conditional logic

Partial Date fields can be used in conditional logic rules of other fields, pages, notifications and feeds. Rules compare the saved form: “Year built is less than 1950” for a year only field, “Started starts with 2026” for this year’s starts, or “Birthday contains –12-” for December birthdays. Rules react as soon as a part is chosen.

Extras for the standard Date field

When a Date field is shown as Date drop-down or Date field (number boxes), its General tab gets a Year range (Partial Dates) section:

• From / To: a year or a number of years from this year, exactly like the Partial Date field. Date of birth from -80 to -16, for example, always offers people aged 16 to 80 without editing the form every January. Empty keeps Gravity Forms’ own default (1920 to next year).
• Order: newest or oldest year first in the year drop-down.
• Month drop-down shows: numbers (1-12), month names or short names. Only the text changes; the saved date is the same.

A year outside the range is refused on the server with “Please choose a year from … to …”. These settings are not used by the calendar date picker, which keeps its own behaviour.

Example: an employment history

A recruitment form usually asks for the last two or three jobs, each with a start and an end month. Add two Partial Date fields per job, “From” and “To”, both set to Month and year, years From -50 To 0 and Allowed: Now or earlier. Add a “This is my current job” checkbox and use conditional logic to hide the “To” field when it is ticked. A Number field with the formula {From:5:monthsago} – {To:6:monthsago} then gives the months spent in that job, and {From:5:yearsago} gives the years since the applicant started when “To” is hidden. In the notification to the recruiter, {all_fields} lists each job as “June 2019” to “March 2024”, and the CSV export has one sortable column per date.

Feeds, webhooks and exports

Add-on feeds that map a field, such as a spreadsheet or a newsletter tool, usually receive the value the way the CSV export shows it: in the field’s display format. Choose the format the other side expects, for example 2026-04 for a month and year or 04/17 for a birthday. Where a feed or webhook lets you type merge tags, pick a part with a modifier instead: {Your birthday:3:mmdd} for a newsletter birthday field, {Started:3:iso} for the saved form, or {Started:3:monthname} {Started:3:year} for a readable month.

Frequently asked questions

Can visitors type a partial date instead of choosing it?

Yes: choose number boxes. Each part is a small box that accepts digits, with the range shown by the browser and checked again on the server.

What happens on multi-page forms and Save and Continue?

The value travels with the form like any other field and is shown again when the visitor comes back or after a failed check.

Does the year range move by itself?

Yes, when you use numbers such as -80 or +5. They are worked out from the current year every time the form is shown and sent.

Can I export the saved form instead of the display format?

The CSV export uses the display format. A developer can switch it to the saved form with the gepdt_export_iso filter, or you can use :iso in a feed.

What happens to my data if I deactivate or uninstall the add-on?

Entries keep their saved values (2026-04 and so on). Uninstalling removes only the add-on’s licence data and settings; forms and entries are never touched.

Does it send data to an outside service?

No. Everything runs on your own site.

Troubleshooting

• The Partial Date button is missing: check that the licence is active in Forms → Settings → Partial Dates.
• The Year range section shows a note instead of settings: the Date field is set to Date Picker; choose Date drop-down or Date field under Date Input Type.
• A year you expected is not offered: check From and To; a number without a sign, such as 0 or 5, counts from this year.
• A calculation shows 0: the field is empty or half filled, or the modifier asks for a part the field does not have.

Support

Questions or ideas? Contact GravityExtra support from your account. You can also read the overview on the Partial Dates add-on page.