AFI
Date is before
Date is before passes when the date in the field is earlier than the date you type. Both sides are parsed as dates, so you can compare against a fixed calendar date or a moving one such as today.
When to use it
Use it for anything with a deadline or a cut-off: early-bird bookings, registrations received before an event closes, appointments scheduled sooner than a lead time allows, submissions dated before a pricing change.
How to configure it
- Open AFI → Integrations and edit your integration.
- Switch on Conditional Logic.
- Pick the date field, choose Date is before, and type the comparison date.
Accepted date formats
Both the field value and the value you type are read with PHP’s date parser, so a wide range of inputs work:
| You can type | Meaning |
|---|---|
2026-12-31 |
An absolute date, ISO style |
12/31/2026 |
An absolute date, US style |
2026-12-31 17:00 |
A date and time |
today |
Midnight this morning |
now |
The exact moment the submission runs |
now +30 days |
Thirty days from the submission |
first day of next month |
A calculated calendar date |
Relative phrases are evaluated at the moment the submission is processed, so a rule set to today keeps working indefinitely without editing.
How it behaves
The comparison includes the time of day. Date is before today means earlier than midnight this morning, which excludes anything submitted today. To include today, compare against tomorrow instead.
If either side cannot be read as a date, the rule fails and the integration does not run. A blank date field or a free-text answer will not accidentally match.
Dates are interpreted in your WordPress site’s timezone.
Example
An event registration form should push early-bird sign-ups into a discounted list. The cut-off is the end of 30 September 2026.
Set the rule to {{registration_date}} Date is before 2026-10-01. Everything received on or after 1 October falls through to a second integration with the standard pricing list.
Notes
If your form supplies the date in an ambiguous format such as 05/06/2026, the parser reads it as month/day/year. Configure the form to output an ISO date (2026-06-05) where you can, or use the _submission_date special tag, which is always unambiguous.