---
title: "datetime() submacro"
slug: "datetime-submacro"
updated: 2023-01-06T15:49:51Z
published: 2023-01-06T15:49:51Z
canonical: "docs.catchpoint.com/datetime-submacro"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.catchpoint.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# datetime() submacro

Alert webhook macros like **alertProcessingTimestampUTC** and **alertCreateDateLocal** returns the date and time in a concatenated format like `20170412105408131`. This may not not be easy/friendly to read.

In order to format the date and time in a more readable way, we can make use of `datetime()` sub-macro.

For example:

```
{ 
"alertProcessingTimestampUTC": "${alertProcessingTimestampUTC}",
"alertCreateDateLocal": "${alertCreateDateLocal}",
}
```

This JSON template without the datetime macro gives the output as shown below.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/cb4af8f9-6751-4fd2-b39c-07aae832badb/Images/Documentation/360010982592-mceclip1.png)

Now, if we use the datetime macro like the example given below, we get the date and time in a more readable format.

```
{ 
"alertProcessingTimestampUTC": "${alertProcessingTimestampUTC(datetime(yyyy-MM-ddHH:mm:ss))}", 
"AlertCreateDateLocal": "${AlertCreateDateLocal(datetime(yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss))}"  
}
```

![](https://cdn.document360.io/cb4af8f9-6751-4fd2-b39c-07aae832badb/Images/Documentation/360011798792-mceclip0.png)