diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index c75ce47880..d2abfb3014 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 .DS_Store
-.env
+.env*
 .eslintcache
 .idea
 .log
diff --git a/test/utils/common-utils.js b/lib/utils/common-utils.test.ts
similarity index 95%
rename from test/utils/common-utils.js
rename to lib/utils/common-utils.test.ts
index 37c355580d..2dd667d68a 100644
--- a/test/utils/common-utils.js
+++ b/lib/utils/common-utils.test.ts
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-const utils = require('../../lib/utils/common-utils');
+import { describe, expect, it } from '@jest/globals';
+import utils from './common-utils';
 
 describe('common-utils', () => {
     it('toTitleCase', () => {
diff --git a/lib/utils/common-utils.ts b/lib/utils/common-utils.ts
index 8ef37f1b90..e89ee3fa14 100644
--- a/lib/utils/common-utils.ts
+++ b/lib/utils/common-utils.ts
@@ -8,14 +8,14 @@ const rWhiteSpace = /\s+/;
 const rAllWhiteSpace = /\s+/g;
 
 // collapse all whitespaces into a single space (like "white-space: normal;" would do), and trim
-const collapseWhitespace = (str: string) => {
+const collapseWhitespace = (str?: string | null) => {
     if (str && rWhiteSpace.test(str)) {
         return str.replaceAll(rAllWhiteSpace, ' ').trim();
     }
     return str;
 };
 
-const convertDateToISO8601 = (date: string | Date | number) => {
+const convertDateToISO8601 = (date?: string | Date | number | null) => {
     if (!date) {
         return date;
     }