diff --git a/R/deployments.R b/R/deployments.R
index 076455bb..e0704376 100644
--- a/R/deployments.R
+++ b/R/deployments.R
@@ -132,6 +132,7 @@ deploymentRecord <- function(name,
                              bundleId = NULL,
                              url = NULL,
                              version = deploymentRecordVersion,
+                             when = NULL,
                              metadata = list()) {
 
   check_character(envVars, allow_null = TRUE)
@@ -147,6 +148,7 @@ deploymentRecord <- function(name,
     appId = appId %||% "",
     bundleId = bundleId %||% "",
     url = url %||% "",
+    when = when %||% as.numeric(as.POSIXct(Sys.time())),
     version = version
   )
   # convert any multi-value metadata entries into comma-separated values
@@ -164,6 +166,7 @@ writeDeploymentRecord <- function(record, filePath) {
 addToDeploymentHistory <- function(appPath, deploymentRecord) {
   # add the appPath to the deploymentRecord
   deploymentRecord$appPath <- appPath
+  deploymentRecord$when <- as.numeric(as.POSIXct(Sys.time()))
 
   # write new history file
   newHistory <- deploymentHistoryPath(new = TRUE)