A start time takes one of the forms:-

time
date@time

time must be one of:-

hhmmss
hhmm
h:m:s
h:m

If a corresponding finish time is before a start time, and dates are not used, one midnight boundary is assumed. Although a : is the most common separator any one of the following can be used:-

: – / . ;

Spaces are ignored. Do not mix separators in a start time. The following examples all refer to the same start time of 9am:-

090000
0900
09 : 0 : 0
9:0:0
09:0
9 / 0
9-0-0

Note that when no separator is used, the start time must be a 6 digit or a 4 digit number. When separators are used, you can drop leading zeros and to improve readability you can optionally include alphabetic characters in each component of the time, for example:-

9h:0m:0s

When including a date separate the time from the date with a “@” character; for example:-

21/3/05@9.30