in scripting I use the following to set date strings to valid date formats
from java.text import SimpleDateFormat
inputFormat=SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") # Must match the format of the input string
outputFormat=SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") # The format you want to convert to
dateIn=event.source.selectedStringValue
processedDateIn=SimpleDateFormat.parse(inputFormat,dateIn) # Convert Input String to Java Date
event.source.parent.getComponent('Power Table').SDate=processedDateIn
event.source.parent.getComponent('Power Table').EDate=system.date.addMinutes(processedDateIn,7)