Magento 2.1.3 EE - Cart Price Rule is missing "From" and "To" fields for expiration date

Question

I am attempting to create some Cart Price Rules (essentially coupon codes). I believe M2 is supposed to support expiring coupon codes, just like M1.

Click the Calendar next to the From field, and choose the first date the coupon can be used. The promotion will start at the beginning of that day.

Click the Calendar next to the To field, and choose the last date the coupon can be used. The promotion will stop at the end of that day.

Source: Magento Enterprise Edition 2.1 User Guide

However, as you can see these screenshots, the From and To fields are not present in EE 2.1.3. I also recreated the issue in 2.1.2. However, the second screenshot shows that the fields are indeed visible in 2.1.2 Community Edition. I don't know if the EE/CE divide is actually relevant, but that's the only data point I've dug up so far.

I did discover that, in the salesrule table, I still see the from_date and to_date fields. So, as a developer, I would be able to create these coupon codes. However, as I cannot instruct my admin user to edit the database manually. Any suggestions with getting these fields to display in the admin would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

The user guide PDF you linked to appears to be out of date. See the equivalent HTML page: http://docs.magento.com/m2/ee/user_guide/marketing/price-rules-cart.html

They removed point 1.6, regarding the date fields, and replaced step 5 with four new steps (5-8).

The answer to your question is in step 8. The date fields are gone, but that's okay, and it's intentional. There's a different way to schedule things now. Magento added a new Enterprise feature called 'Content Staging' in 2.1. All scheduling must be done through the staging feature, rather than on the date fields present on older versions and still on Community Edition.

The benefit is that you can directly link your promotions to changes in product content, banners, pages, etc, and have them all apply and end at the same time. You schedule the changes in advance; Magento takes care of the rest for you.

Answer 2

I encountered the same issue using M2 EE.

To create a time-limited coupon, create the coupon as normal and save it as inactive.

Then, click the top-right "Schedule New Update".

On this screen, fill out the "Save as New Update" section with an update name (something like "XXX Promo") and your start and end date.

Give it a start date and end date.

Then, in the Rule Information section, select active YES.

Next, save the update.

You will now find that your promo campaign turns on during the period you set out in your start and end date and then returns to being inactive once this period is over.

While your promo is running, you can see that and all your other promotions by looking in CONTENT > CONTENT STAGING > DASHBOARD. This is why it is important to make your update name memorable, otherwise you'll not be able to decipher which promo is which when you have them running side-by-side.