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!
Best Answer
The user guide PDF you linked to appears to be out of date.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.