How do I calculate the difference between 2 dates?

jretzlaff

Trying to track variable durations of past projects and simply want to subtract the start date from the completion date... depending on which format the column is in, I get various errors. Seems like I should be able to simply subtract one cell from the other, no?

Mike Wilday

Are you wanting to get the number of calendar days or business days?

=networkdays([Column 8]23, [Column 8]25)

• https://help.smartsheet.com/function/networkday

=netdays([Column 8]23, [Column 8]25)

• https://help.smartsheet.com/function/netdays

Hope that helps!

Chris McKay

Hi jretzlaff,

Is Column8 a date formatted column?

Based on the Start and Turnover values, I'd say no.

If you cell-link dates in from a Date column and they land in a Text/Number column, Smartsheet will not treat them as dates. So even though Mike's formulas are 100% correct, you'll still get an error.

To make matters worse, Smartsheet uses the base format (i.e. Date) when a formula is entered into a Date column (even if you don't restrict the column to dates). Again Smartsheet.... Why? Whyyyyyyyyy?

I'd suggest applying Mike's formulas to a Date column and restricting the cell-links to dates only.

Kind regards,

Chris McKay