What's the best practice for specifying a specific date in the past in an expression?

Using a constant is a best practice for specifying a specific date in the past within Appian expressions. Constants provide a clear and stable way to define values that are not expected to change, which is particularly important when dealing with date values for consistency and maintainability in your applications. By defining a date as a constant, you can easily manage changes and leverage that constant across different parts of your application without the risk that other expressions might inadvertently affect the original date value.

Constants also improve the clarity of your code, making it easier for other developers (or your future self) to understand the purpose and usage of that date within the context of the application. This fosters better collaboration and minimizes errors associated with hard-coded or changing values.

In contrast, using a date function may be appropriate for dynamically generating dates, but it doesn’t provide the same level of stability as a constant for fixed past dates. Enclosing dates in double quotes would treat the value as a string, which can lead to complications when comparison or date manipulation is needed. Specifying dates in a text format like "mmm/dd/yyyy" can also lead to misinterpretation by the system, as it does not conform to the expected date format within the Appian environment. Therefore, defining a date as