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Date/Time and Identity (On/By) Meta Fields

Learn about the date/time and identity-related meta fields that are available for content entries.

Can I use this?

The new meta fields outlined in this article are available since v5.39.0.

Introduction

Apart from the fields that are defined in a content model by the user, all content entries also have a set of date/time and identity-related meta fields. A couple of examples:

revisionCreatedOn - the date/time when an entry revision was created
revisionFirstPublishedOn - the date/time when an entry revision was first published
createdOn - the date/time when an entry was created
lastPublishedOn - the date/time when an entry was last published

These meta fields are automatically populated by the system, and they can be used to display information about the entry, such as when it was created, modified, or published, and by whom.

Developers can use these fields when querying entries, for example via the Headless CMS GraphQL API:

They can also use them in their custom JavaScript (TypeScript) code, for example, when hooking onto lifecycle events:

Revision-Level and Entry-Level Meta Fields

The meta fields are available at two levels: revision-level and entry-level.

Revision-level fields include the revision prefix in their names, and they contain information about the revision of an entry. For example, revisionCreatedOn is the date/time when the revision was created, and revisionCreatedBy is the identity of the user who created the revision.

On the other hand, entry-level fields do not contain the revision prefix in their names, and they contain information about the entry itself. For example, createdOn is the date/time when the entry was created, and createdBy is the identity of the user who created the entry. These fields do not change when a revision is created, modified, or published, nor if new revisions are created, modified, or published.

Meta Fields

The following table lists all the date/time and identity-related meta fields that are available for content entries.

Revision-Level Meta Fields

Field	Description
`revisionCreatedOn`	The date/time when an entry revision was created.
`revisionModifiedOn`	The date/time when an entry revision was last modified.
`revisionSavedOn`	The date/time when an entry revision was last saved.
`revisionFirstPublishedOn`	The date/time when an entry revision was first published.
`revisionLastPublishedOn`	The date/time when an entry revision was last published.
`revisionCreatedBy`	The user who created an entry revision.
`revisionModifiedBy`	The user who last modified an entry revision.
`revisionSavedBy`	The user who last saved an entry revision.
`revisionFirstPublishedBy`	The user who first published an entry revision.
`revisionLastPublishedBy`	The user who last published an entry revision.

Entry-Level Meta Fields

Field	Description
`createdOn`	The date/time when an entry was created.
`modifiedOn`	The date/time when an entry was last modified.
`savedOn`	The date/time when an entry was last saved.
`firstPublishedOn`	The date/time when an entry was first published.
`lastPublishedOn`	The date/time when an entry was last published.
`createdBy`	The user who created an entry.
`modifiedBy`	The user who last modified an entry.
`savedBy`	The user who last saved an entry.
`firstPublishedBy`	The user who first published an entry.
`lastPublishedBy`	The user who last published an entry.

FAQ

What Is the Difference Between`modified`and`saved`Meta Fields?

The difference between modified and saved meta fields is that modified fields can be null if the entry has not been modified yet, while saved is never null because it is updated even when the entry is created.

So, if we were to create a new entry, the createdOn and savedOn fields would have the same value, but the modifiedOn field would be null because the entry has not been modified yet. Only after the first update, the modifiedOn field would have a value different from null. Actually, after the first update, the savedOn and modifiedOn will always have the same value.