What format should be used for the news_from_date attributre?

Question

Adding a date to the news_from_date to a new product using the calendar returns to this format: dd/mm/yyyy

but if I mass import (via magmi) a DB the value in magento has been changed to something like "11/30/00-1" which is obviously wrong.

Answer 1

When saving a product, all dates attributes are processed before saving. They are converted from the format corresponding to your admin locale to the standard mysql format (YYYY-mm-dd).
You can try to supply your import with the dates in this format.
For example: June 25th 2013 will be 2013-06-25