Transforming a "String" field from forms to a "Date" field

[mabdouf]

Hello Hello!

A fresh Power Automate user here. Recently I made the flow you can see below where I capture data from a form that is filled by one person, where there is a date slot called "Activity's Date". the date in "Activity's date" is entered as a string. I would like to convert it to a date format but I am failing to do so. the main reason I am doing so is that I want to keep a track of what orders my company is receiving sorted by date.

I need a hand, please!

[efialttes]

@mabdouf 

What's the format you are currently receiving?

Or... you will find more info about date format manipulation here

Hope this helps

[mabdouf]

The field i am receiving is a string format

[efialttes]

Sorry I did not explain myself properly. Can you share an example of the date format you are trying to manipulate?

2020-01-27

2020/27/01

Monday January 27th

...

[mabdouf]

The date's format is 

1/27/2020

Keep in mind I took a look at the post you mentioned in the previous reply, but i am not quite sure its relevant to my case. 

The field I want to change to a date format is the "Date of Activity".

 

[efialttes · Accepted solution]

Hi again

As far as I know, Power Automate does not have a broad set of date format manipulation funtions as other environments (I am thinking on moment.js for example).

If so, this means you have to use expressions to adapt it to the format required by the destination, it your case Sharepoint. IN this post you will find different approaches to solve a similar problem.

If I were you, I would suggest to implement a test flow (manually executed) and verify which is the format more similar to the one you got that is accepted by Sharepoint connector (i .e. when we request to add a new item from PowerAutomate) as proper date.

Please note this is the standard format used by PowerAutomate:

2018-04-15T13:00:00.0000000Z

I believe there are several formats currently accepted by Sharepoint connector, but let's assume this is the only format accepted by Sharepoint connector, this means:

-you need to split 1/27/2020 in three pieces by using '/' as the separator, and build the required format by changing its order.

So if you apply the following expression...

concat(split('1/27/2020','/')[2],'-',split('1/27/2020','/')[0],'-',split('1/27/2020','/')[1],'T00:00:00.0000000Z')

...you will get:

2020-1-27T00:00:00.0000000Z

-if Sharepoint accepts this format (2020-1-27T00:00:00.0000000Z) then you got it! If not, probably you will need to declare the months and days with two digits, also by using expressions. So, you can evaluate the length of

split('1/27/2020','/')[0]

If length is 1 you should concat a 0 at the beginning of the month.

Hope this helps

[efialttes]

One more comment:

I've just posted the following idea, I think if implemented could save a lot of time struggling with date format and expressions

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Ideas/Simplified-date-formatting/idi-p/454197#M19... 

Feel free to vote it