# How could I create an expectation to say the time value in a field should be later than some number of hours ago?

**URL:** <https://discourse.greatexpectations.io/t/how-could-i-create-an-expectation-to-say-the-time-value-in-a-field-should-be-later-than-some-number-of-hours-ago/418>\
**Category:** Archive\
**Tags:** types-of-expectation\
**Created:** [September 29, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://discourse.greatexpectations.io/t/how-could-i-create-an-expectation-to-say-the-time-value-in-a-field-should-be-later-than-some-number-of-hours-ago/418 "2020-09-29T21:04:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![eugene.mandel](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.greatexpectations.io/eugene.mandel/32/22_2.png) [@eugene.mandel](https://discourse.greatexpectations.io/u/eugene.mandel)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://discourse.greatexpectations.io/t/how-could-i-create-an-expectation-to-say-the-time-value-in-a-field-should-be-later-than-some-number-of-hours-ago/418/1 "2020-09-29T21:04:36Z")

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You can use this expectation: [expect\_column\_values\_to\_be\_between](https://docs.greatexpectations.io/en/latest/autoapi/great_expectations/dataset/dataset/index.html#great_expectations.dataset.dataset.Dataset.expect_column_values_to_be_between)

The max\_value argument can be left unspecified (left as None).  
The min\_value is the argument that should express your constraint. However, you cannot set it to a specific numeric value, since what you want it to say “at least X hours ago”. This can be achieved using [Evaluation Parameters](https://docs.greatexpectations.io/en/latest/reference/core_concepts/evaluation_parameters.html). They allow to set an argument of an expectation to a variable (evaluation parameter) and provide the value at the validation time.