# Today date without user login

**URL:** <https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650>\
**Category:** Ask for Help\
**Created:** [May 11, 2021, 7:53pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650 "2021-05-11T19:53:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Augusto](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/augusto/32/25004_2.png) [@Augusto](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Augusto)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 7:53pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650/1 "2021-05-11T19:53:38Z")

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I want to get the current month from when user open the app, without login.  
Is there a way to get it?

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**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 9:09pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650/2 "2021-05-11T21:09:57Z")

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As long as you force the user to click a button or perform some sort of action when they first open the app, you can get the current date/time through that action from the Special Column Values and add a row to a sheet with the date/time or set the value to a user specific column.

If you simply want the current date/time, you can add a math column to your sheets that gets the current date/time. If you wanted only the date, you could wrap the value in the math column with MONTH(date). That would give you the month number that you can convert to the word version with an IF column

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**Author:** ![Darren\_Murphy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/darren_murphy/32/47326_2.png) [@Darren\_Murphy](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Darren_Murphy)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 3:14am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650/3 "2021-05-12T03:14:58Z")

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> [@Jeff\_Hager](#):
>
> That would give you the month number that you can convert to the word version with an IF column

@Jeff_Hager I just had an epiphany!  
In my apps, I have lots of columns that look like this:

 ![Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 11.04.16 AM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/5/9/596eacab29124d0e285deaf57b30813db7538097.png)

As I was creating _yet another_ one of these yesterday I was thinking to myself “there must be an easier way”. And then it hit me just now as I was reading your post…

Challenge: Extract the short month name from a date (eg. “Jan”)

The way I normally do this is by first extracting the Month and Day components using date math, and then that stupid if-then-else column to determine the month name.

But there is a _much_ easier way…

- Create a Text column that contains all the month names
- Then do a direct lookup on this column with a Single Value, using the calculated month number as an offset from the start.

 ![Screen Shot 2021-05-12 at 11.11.20 AM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/0/4/04e68802801510937b7e74c25c1721848ee17cec.png)

Soooooo much easier!! 😆

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**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 3:31am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650/4 "2021-05-12T03:31:49Z")

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That’s smart!

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**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 10:02am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650/5 "2021-05-12T10:02:27Z")

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Smart thinking!

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**Author:** ![Augusto](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/augusto/32/25004_2.png) [@Augusto](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Augusto)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 7:12pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/today-date-without-user-login/26650/6 "2021-05-12T19:12:22Z")

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Thanks @Darren_Murphy , @Darren_Murphy for the replys.  
I will try yours @Darren_Murphy , it’s very smart indeed.