Current Date Ampscript on View Online page

Question

I used the following AMPSCRIPT to get the date and time displayed on the email at the time of send:

Code block:

<!-- date/time -->
%%[
VAR @today 
SET @today = SystemDateToLocalDate(Now(1))
]%%

Inline code : %%=FormatDate(@today,"d MMMM yyyy à ", "HH'h'mm","fr-FR")=%%

The date and time are displayed correctly on the email once it is received. However, when clicking on View Online, it is another date and time (an older one, like 2 days before...).

Is that normal ? Is there anything we can do to display the same date/time on the View Online page ?

Thank you

Regards

Ludivine

Answer 1

There are three options for this to retain time displayed in email:

1. Now(1): Originally it provides current time. After send it provides job start time/Job publish time for Triggers/Journeys. This can be an issue for Triggers as there are times that it could be days, weeks or even months since the email was last published (which is likely the issue you are facing).
2. GetSendTime(): This one is pretty much 100% identical to Now(1) in every way.
3. GetSendTime(1): This is the recommended one I would use as it utilizes 'Subscriber send completed time' instead of based off job start/publish times.

Long story short, I would recommend utilizing GetSendTime(1) instead of Now(1) in your above code.