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Format Dates

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Andrew Ronchetto on 29 Jan 2015 09:53:07

The ability to change the format of a date similar to in Excel where you can base it on a YYYY, MM, DD, etc.

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Ken Castillo on 06 Jul 2020 00:09:29

RE: Format Dates

This is not completed. As of the time of this writing, there is no facility to accomplish this where Dates display on the x-axis of a plot.

AuditDate2 = FORMAT([AuditDate], "DD-MMM") will transform the date data to text and sorting will proceed alphanumerically instead of preserving ordinal relationships between dates. We need a solution whereby:

"01-Jun" in 2020 must not sort ascending as if before "01-Mar" in 2020
"01-Jun" in 2020 must not sort ascending as if after "01-Jul" in 2021

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Silas Valera on 05 Jul 2020 22:36:34

RE: Format Dates

The status says it is completed, but is it really? I am used previous / current version of Oct 2016 but there is only a few options for the date formatting, the date displayed in table or matrix visual is dayname, mmmm d, yyyy (like Thursday, December 8, 2016) - and not always we want to use date hierarchy. I did a workaround of changing the source table column data type to nvarchar and showing the date in whatever format we need, but in the table / matrix visual, it cannot identify this as date and then "sort" on that column is by alpha and not chrono, very frustrating ! Also the export to excel would not take that column and date :( Need this feature very much!! Can we re-open this and someone can help/support on this feature?

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:31:46

RE: Format Dates

Is it possible to set the dateformat for the date that we have already entered???

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Srinivas on 05 Jul 2020 22:27:29

RE: Format Dates

Hi, I have a basic doubt on working in "Direct Query mode". Would the formatting changes i make in my Power BI Desktop in direct query mode influence the data storage in the underlying database or its just these formatting changes are local to my PC or pbix file.

Regards,
Srinivas

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:23:31

RE: Format Dates

This is marked as completed, but I don't see the feature in PowerBI Desktop (I have the latest). I can only format dates from a selection list.

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Javid on 05 Jul 2020 22:21:44

RE: Format Dates

I want to format DateTime to Date and it works fine but it trims the Zero. or does not keep zero
in the front of single month value(01,02,etc). So when converted and sorted, it displayed like text. 2015/1, 2015/10,2015/11, 2015/12, 2/2015/2, 2015/3 and so on.

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Peter Johnson on 05 Jul 2020 22:20:15

RE: Format Dates

I agree, custom Date formatting would be incredibly useful. Dennis's solution above (using a calculated column) should work, but since the new column is treated as text instead of as a date, it shows up alphabetically instead of chronologically.

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Sean McNellis on 05 Jul 2020 22:17:12

RE: Format Dates

Will, this is a great option - but can we specify our own? For instance, I have a need to display MMM or MMMM (just the month name. The designer appears to "know better" and only lets me pick from a pre-defined list of options.

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:16:48

RE: Format Dates

Dates are always displayed in reports as e.g. Monday, 1 January 2016. How do I display it as 1/1/2016?

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Randy Haagens on 05 Jul 2020 22:08:53

RE: Format Dates

I need to format datetime values on the x-axis of a line chart as yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm