hi mbritton, the code provided by your friend is ok, but you cannot use it in an expression (as you can see it is a set of instructions, not just an expression). So the "hard" and clean solution would be to put that code in a Java class, and use an expression like: MyJavaClass.getPreviousDay( $P{my_date} ) Of couse this involves some java coding, compiling and deploy.... The second option is good enough, and it's much easire for this specific case (get the previous day). It just remove 60*60*24 seconds to your original date: new java.util.Date( $P{my_date}.getTime() - 60*60*24 ) if the parameter my_date is not a date, but just a string, you can parse it in this way: new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd").parse( $P{my_date} ) Regards Giulio