# Help with index template format for date with 6 millis **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [September 21, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-with-index-template-format-for-date-with-6-millis/149450 "2018-09-21T12:41:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![reswob](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/reswob/32/38015_2.png) [@reswob](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/reswob)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-with-index-template-format-for-date-with-6-millis/149450/1 "2018-09-21T12:41:11Z")
I have a time field that has dates like: 2018-09-21T08:10:22.441223-0400 and I tried to create my template with the following: "format" : "YYYY-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS-Z" "format" : "YYYY-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.SSSSSS-Z" "format" : "YYYY-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSZ" All these fail with the reason of "failed to parse" caused by "illegal\_argument\_exception" reason "Invalid format: "2018-09-21T08:10:22.441223-0400" is malformed at "T08:10:22.441223-0400" Suggestions? EDIT: Some additional info: Maybe I'm missing something, but the timestamp is in the same format and for that I'm simply using the logstash config of: date { match =\> ["datefield" , "ISO8601"] } is there a template equivalent? I have not been able to find at [http://www.joda.org/joda-time/key\_format.html](http://www.joda.org/joda-time/key_format.html) or at [http://www.joda.org/joda-time/apidocs/org/joda/time/format/ISODateTimeFormat.html](http://www.joda.org/joda-time/apidocs/org/joda/time/format/ISODateTimeFormat.html) ---
**Author:** ![jakelandis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jakelandis/32/36163_2.png) [@jakelandis](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jakelandis)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 4:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-with-index-template-format-for-date-with-6-millis/149450/2 "2018-09-21T16:53:55Z")
I think your pattern needs to use a lowercase `y` for the year. The following should work: `yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSZ`. Curious to why need to specify the pattern at all ? Is the default loosing some of the millisecond precision ? ---
**Author:** ![reswob](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/reswob/32/38015_2.png) [@reswob](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/reswob)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-with-index-template-format-for-date-with-6-millis/149450/3 "2018-09-21T17:21:41Z")
None of the millisecond patterns showed a millisecond pattern to six characters... [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-date-format.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-date-format.html) I am going to try the lower case... ---
**Author:** ![reswob](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/reswob/32/38015_2.png) [@reswob](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/reswob)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-with-index-template-format-for-date-with-6-millis/149450/4 "2018-09-21T17:41:36Z")
OK, I was dumping logs into a test index and had set the template to not define that field. I just went to make that change and I noticed that ES analyzed that field and decided it was a date. On the other hand, your suggestion worked! Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-with-index-template-format-for-date-with-6-millis/149450/5 "2018-10-19T17:41:39Z")
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