I’ll stick to calling this an apparent bug for now as I’ve only tested/confirmed the same results on two separate SharePoint 2013 environments. So, anyone that can verify this and confirm would be much appreciated for my sanity of mind and hopefully so we can get a fix for it. Or may there is already a fix that someone else knows about and can tell me what I’m doing wrong.

The Issue

When setting the default value of a Date/Time column, on a document set, at the Library to [Today] in order to default to the current date when creating a document set, it doesn’t work. Instead, you simple get the text “[Today]” as the default column value. However, if you set the default at the Site Column level, [Today] works as expected. Below are the steps I took to test/verify my issue:

  1. Create two Date/Time Site Columns, MyDate and MyDate2
  2. Enable Content Types on a Document Library and add the Document Set Content Type
  3. Add both MyDate and MyDate2 to the Document Set Content Type in the library
    https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2pzdIuzC02NxsScGgYdaVXrFGYos1umXDxWd5W_iUEDGng6_qgFfGO9zBFroRj9siWyEoXSHGwA-xFdqR5drN5VEgN0H_eaej1vMtwxxZr5sdu9KqyT5dhFx256zyTez1_vPp-TWkCXTXpVhK873GMiw/ColumnsAddedToDocumentSet.png
  4. Set up both types of Defaults
    • Column Default Value Settings
      • Step 1
        https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2p0CSRTCFNwhEry07Swbn08H5UnY8lUZ6XvCfMI-aQ2Zy4VJERpgUpxgZKWU5k6V0gZh71CWVH-HGPPHYfwcw-Bbox146Pwg7QNsCxkbAMFO0slyffq3pWen7YeurBhQwUJpRn2ptJZV32LgEioM7U-Q/ColumnDefaultData.png
      • Step 2
        https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2pj4mnooiref5rKB1HvC256zilxxKjghNskoq4AO-nVOcNr2pHDcJcTW5Q2Hccr8p31cp8ilOLDhQ7hf5IGoRMKbH_iWEssEwo1bnTPcZriP3HKqTJ0tmJTCdyRjXzZsQDsEw05yl3k8d0NG7KxxvwNQ/MyDate2Default.png
    • Site Column Default Value Settings
      • Step 1
        https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2p1piPUyuBYmMa786zBNR953CQTYFD_kBvYVrEg61dtggFbrG2yFgY8LPjT8Wgy41ADM-9yLSiB4oWwAyKYzjZKgy1kvYij6_Hk-c8ulxWMjyQbVVDiXlpsLnB-hbc9Y4cEK4NBkq98lX__NYJF-O_Dw/SiteColumns.png
      • Step 2
        https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2poaPtUoad6zMqj41OuX-H1G6wOffVrtCKgq66WLXZ0mCBYQHT8JoHK2U25htMT8vSVXj8bQx5vrIOov4J_gP5cG2NhIOv9A3MQ0h63EyOglDOh63BNCwnWUeh9to1mYQ_Z2DMMrWh-Io15VZrJsEklw/MyDate.png
      • Step 3
        https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2pyNtlKiq9ZnduHJBwI4iQ4z8mGQ3psEGS_7C4_Yb24r8YZmiGiabhIl1zAuf9yTsMfD7OApcGRzl5w-odnhAcvrU9N1xVkULb3XjsUsTRzNaz6cNYT9c-BADbrQcklkMrzxRj2-NUhbBGJqRSXlS9Mg/MyDateDefault.png
  5. Both defaults have been set up identically and you can see them here
    https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2pRpfYZa2tEjsS0Qp69ASNcLQJOnHYTicNl4nn7Ko2Xv43F_goAvBpKvmhIVe3PGMutr33vyKJY1nfyg4AUeewFq9mg1LLRziIz-B4MuzwHjSFWCTaScEO_WTBc4tZH-m9323DNgM2a0A3NbVM8sbOFQ/DefaultValueSource.png

So, now the actual issue surfaces. You would think when you create a new document set, both MyDate and MyDate2 would get today’s date. However, you’ll find that MyDate (the Site Column Default) works correctly but MyDate2 (the Folder Default) doesn’t actually get todays date, instead it get’s the text [today] 🙁

https://19fxea.dm2301.livefilestore.com/y2pvzL_Iud0SOjWN_677GqfVpn1mJbMvESrfRE6PHiW90AHUemuggLi05WQZGjVz_A1U1Ipc7PIc0Uv0UqrZhUdTA6FHjN5_sDvsh0H11V5qhfcHjz19LVxnQ0XLpUzVbEmCU_sT4jNT1yRvQTty96XOQ/TodayNotSetting.png

If anyone else can verify they see the same behavior I would greatly appreciate it then we can all cross our fingers that Microsoft will fix this in a future CU.

As a last minute test, I also just verified that the exact same issue exists in O365