# Is there a way to get “updated\_at” timestamps from YCQL without additional columns? **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [August 11, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://forum.yugabyte.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-get-updated-at-timestamps-from-ycql-without-additional-columns/793 "2020-08-11T14:33:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dorian\_yugabyte](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.yugabyte.com/dorian_yugabyte/32/206_2.png) [@dorian\_yugabyte](https://forum.yugabyte.com/u/dorian_yugabyte)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://forum.yugabyte.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-get-updated-at-timestamps-from-ycql-without-additional-columns/793/1 "2020-08-11T14:33:17Z")
[Question posted by a user on [YugabyteDB Community Slack](https://www.yugabyte.com/slack) ] Is there a way to get “updated\_at” timestamps from YCQL without additional columns? ---
**Author:** ![dorian\_yugabyte](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.yugabyte.com/dorian_yugabyte/32/206_2.png) [@dorian\_yugabyte](https://forum.yugabyte.com/u/dorian_yugabyte)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 2:34pm UTC](https://forum.yugabyte.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-get-updated-at-timestamps-from-ycql-without-additional-columns/793/2 "2020-08-11T14:34:15Z")
On each `INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE` YugabyteDB also stores by default the timestamp when the operation occurred. This can be easily looked up by using the [`WriteTime`](https://docs.yugabyte.com/latest/api/ycql/expr_fcall/#writetime-function) function. `WriteTime` returns the timestamp in microseconds when the value was written: ```auto ycqlsh:yb_demo> create table users(id bigint PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT); ycqlsh:yb_demo> INSERT INTO users(id,name) VALUES (1, 'Billy Johnes'); ycqlsh:yb_demo> SELECT id,name,writetime(name) from users; id | name | writetime(name) ----+--------------+------------------ 1 | Billy Johnes | 1596097449565229 (1 rows) ```