Recommended Approach for Dynamic Date Ranges in Marketo’s Velocity Scripting

Hi Everyone,

I’m exploring the best ways to handle dynamic date ranges in Marketo’s Velocity scripting for a use case where opportunities need to be filtered based on whether their close date falls within a specific date range (e.g., today and 1 week prior). I’ve been testing some approaches and would love your insights on the best practices for this.

I opted for text tokens over date tokens because they are easier to compare using .compareTo() in Velocity, avoid complications with time components and formatting, and provide flexibility for preformatted external values. However, I’m open to switching if date tokens can dynamically resolve and better meet the use case.

What I’ve Tried

• Preformatted Text Tokens: Using text tokens (e.g., currentDate and dateRangeStart) formatted as yyyy-MM-dd to pass date values into the script.
• Hardcoded Testing: Replacing tokens with static dates to test the logic. This works but isn’t dynamic enough for long-term scalability.
• DateTool Attempts: Experimenting with DateTool for dynamic calculations but encountered some formatting and functionality challenges in Marketo’s Velocity environment.

Questions

1. Best Practices: What’s the recommended approach to handle dynamic date ranges in Marketo’s Velocity scripting?
   • Are there alternatives to DateTool?
   • Should I use a different type of token (e.g., a date token instead of text)?
2. Dynamic Date Handling: How do you handle date comparisons and calculations (e.g., subtracting days) efficiently in Marketo’s Velocity scripting?
3. Token Resolution: Are there any considerations or caveats when using text or date tokens with Velocity scripts?

The use case involves filtering opportunities to show only those with a close date between the current date and a specific range (e.g., 1 week prior). Current tokens are preformatted as yyyy-MM-dd.

I’d love to hear your approaches and recommendations! Thanks in advance for your insights.