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Anonymous
Not applicable

Date format issue from FLOW to Excel - date changes dd-MM-yyyy (correct) to MM-dd-yyyy (NOT WANTED)

Doesn't matter what I do, every time I send a string formatted 'dd-MM-yyyy' to an excel table, it changes the date format in EXCEL to MM-dd-yyyy. 

 

I've collected data from a form, and used Submission Time to get the date. Using the following: 

formatDateTime(body('Get_response_details')?['submitDate'], 'dd-MM-yyyy')
OR
string(formatDateTime(body('Get_response_details')?['submitDate'], 'dd-MM-yyyy'))
or 
formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'dd-MM-yyyy')

I run FLOW I get the following CORRECT output - so FLOW is working fine.

Flow_correct_output.PNG

 
However, EXCEL always displays incorrect format (MM-dd-yyyy) (IGNORE lines 20/21 - i've had to manually enter the dates there to confirm FLOW was reading the file correctly) 
incorrect EXCEL.PNG

Column is set to format cells with UK date format. 
 
default format.PNG

 

Using Submission time only will give the correct date format (see below), however reading back into the flow becomes problematic due to the timestamp after the date.
 
also has time.PNG
It appears to be the way Excel is handling the date. 
 
Can anyone help me or point me in the right direction?
 
 
 

 

 

25 REPLIES 25
SteveYao
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous 

 

What's the locale setting for your OS?

Another workaround is to add a single quote before the date output, like below2020-03-09 16_14_42-Clipboard.png

Anonymous
Not applicable

Thanks for the reply.

my OS location settings are UK. 

 

Placing an single quote in front of the date output does have a result in excel but i can't manipulate the date in excel as its treated as a string.

 

excel displays the date as

08-03-2020

 

The problem with that is i have another flow that is triggered at a later time to access the same table and pull data based on date. 

 

What is weird, is that this problem started when I used the submission date passed to my flow from a Form. Prior to that, I had used a Date Selector within the form which had no problems passing the correct date format back to excel.

Hello @Anonymous 

Just one question. Do you have the same problem if you use Excel Online to open the file instead of Excel Desktop app?

Did I answer your question? Please consider to mark my post as a solution to help others.
Proud to be a Flownaut!
Anonymous
Not applicable

I do - same problem if its online, or if its on desktop.

 

I've checked my onedrive region settings and they're UK as well. 

 

Its quite frustrating, I have just set up another new test with a very simple flow to test: 

newtest1.PNG

 

(I changed the name of the Initialise Variable functions between screenshots) 

newtest2.PNG

 

Dates are in correct format....

newtest3.PNG

 

Dates in excel - changed again. If i check the cell format - the location is set to UK.

 

newtest4.PNG

 

Anonymous
Not applicable

I added a further column (updated date) in the excel table that is being passed data and used the following function to pass the date:

addDays(body('Get_response_details')?['ra7027232de9c4a86aa564f9493720ee3'],0,'dd-MM-yyyy')
 
I still have the same problem. 
 

further testing has produced a weird result.

 

Dates including and beyond 13th March 2020 are formatted correctly (local region settings) when passed on to Excel, whereas dates earlier are formatted US.

test5.PNG

 

What is going on here??

 

I think because if earlier than March 13rd, 2020, for example March 12nd, system may think 12 is not the day, it may treated as Month December.

Anonymous
Not applicable

I'm having the EXACT same problem, so frustrating! Was a fix ever found for this issue?

Anonymous
Not applicable

I think I've got a workaround that preserves the ability to use data in Excel. I set the output from Flow as dd-mmm-yyyy but with the cells in Excel formatted as dd-mmm-yyyy.

Chris81
New Member

I've found a solution that works.

 

The problem is that Excel expresses dates as an integer with the "date 0" being 1900-12-1. Excel appears to have issues when Flow changes the format to put days first. To get the correct date entered we need to calculate the difference between dates.

 

In PowerApps, I have a label showing the calculated difference

DateDiff(DateValue("31/12/1899"),Today()).  I then send this number into excel as the date.

 

Doing this calculation is trickier in Flow but here is what I did.

 

Compose (Data Operation) and put an input of:

Sub(div(ticks(DATE1), 864000000000),693593)

 

DATE1 - is the dynamic content with the date you want to go into excel 864000000000 - being the number of ticks in a day.

693593 - being the number of ticks since 01/01/1601 (the day zero date for ticks)

 

Then just use your Flow to put this calculated value into the date column of your excel spreadsheet and let excel do the rest.

 

Hope this all made sense.

As above, Excel stores dates as integer, so you can get around this by calculating how many days you have from the excel start date.

I would use

div(div(mul(sub(ticks(formatDateTime(body('Get_response_details')?['submitDate'], 'yyyy-MM-dd')), ticks('1899-12-30')),100),1000000000), 86400)

ticks converts a date to milliseconds from epoch time, so we're subtracting excel start date ticks from your required date ticks. Then we do some conversion to change that to days in integers.

Format your excel cell to dd/mm/yyyy and it should work fine.

An4tomic1
New Member

By far the cleanest solution as it only modifys an already in use parameter:

In flow just had to change the "formatDateTime" string:

flowfail2.jpg

 

Bejore:

formatDateTime(body('Hora_actual'),'dd/MM/yyyy')
 
After:
formatDateTime(body('Hora_actual'),'dd/MMM/yyyy')
 
The result is the value sent to excel changes as shown on the example:
 
 
flowfail.png

Then in the excel there's nothing to change as defaults works just perfect with that input values.

Thanks!

OwenDearing
New Member

I agree writing in dd/MMM/yyyy format works, but I also find writing to the Excel file in US format works: MM/dd/yyyy

wolfgang001
Helper I
Helper I

Is there anyone who can help me with this?

Problem encountered:

Date format of my sharepoint list is not the same when it writes to my excel for business online.

 

This is the date and time format in my SharePoint list which should also reflect the same format in my excel.

wolfgang001_0-1663651113301.png

 

This is the code that I've written in my Flow

wolfgang001_1-1663651449769.png

 

While this is the output when it writes to my excel.

wolfgang001_2-1663651646619.png

 

Hope someone can help me with this.

Thank you in advance..

 

 

 

 

Since you are saving the date to excel as a string, use the formatDateTime() function.

wolfgang001
Helper I
Helper I

Hi Jay_June,

Thank you for your help. However, I'm still having a hard time following the link you've sent. I'm not a programmer, instead I watched videos in YB just to learn this Program.

 

Action 1:

This is what I did

wolfgang001_0-1663723673015.png

and this is the result in my excel is this.

wolfgang001_1-1663724119433.png

 

Action 2:

wolfgang001_2-1663724394612.png

Result:

wolfgang001_3-1663724519855.png

 

Action 3:

Add some 'mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm'

formatDateTime(triggerOutputs()?['body/StartDate']),'mm/dd/yyyy'
 
Result:
"The expression in invalid"
wolfgang001_4-1663724783879.png

 

Could you help me sent the specific code for this?

Thanks in advance.

 

Hey, it looks like you've misplaced a bracket - it should be at the end.
formatDateTime(triggerOutputs()?['body/StartDate']),'mm/dd/yyyy'

formatDateTime(triggerOutputs()?['body/StartDate'],'mm/dd/yyyy')

Hi Jay,

 

The code is now working😀. However, the time is not the same as expected.

 

This is the time format from my SharePoint list that I need to reflect in my excel.

wolfgang001_0-1663734386826.png

and the result in my excel is this.

wolfgang001_1-1663734462254.png

 

This is the code I've used.

wolfgang001_2-1663734609135.png

formatDateTime(triggerOutputs()?['body/StartDate'],'MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm tt')

The time should be in 24hrs.

 

 

It looks like the data is stored in UTC time and the difference in time is because of timezones. try convertTimeZone()

convertTimeZone(triggerOutputs()?['body/StartDate'],'UTC','MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm tt')

Hi Jay,

 

Upon testing this is the result.

convertTimeZone(triggerOutputs()?['body/StartDate'],'UTC','MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm tt')

 

wolfgang001_0-1664343918263.png

Result

wolfgang001_1-1664344021281.png

 

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