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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate - Building Flows / DateTime fields are se...
Power Automate - Building Flows
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DateTime fields are seen as numbers not dates

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Posted on by fhtech 30

I have a spreadsheet that contains three dates in the following format: m/d/yyyy h:mm:ss AM/PM.  My flow uses LIST ROWS PRESENT IN TABLE to get the data and then CREATE ITEM to add the data to the SP List.  Each Item is mapped, but when the flow is tested,  I get the following error: 

String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.  

Flow shows the output as follows, and notice date is brought in as a number not the date:

9-21-2019 2-28-15 AM.jpg

Any ideas the FormatDate Time as an expression but it did not work as talked about on the following link.  Not sure what I am doing wrong.

Does anybody know what this is?

 

  • Sravya_Rajarapu Profile Picture
    Sravya_Rajarapu 6 on at
    Re: DateTime fields are seen as numbers not dates

    exporting the file from paginated report to power automate the date time column in the report looks like 7/8/2024 10:00 PM and in the flow it looks like 45481.91666666667, how can this be converted? I have tried the Solution in this but that dint work. 

  • fhtech Profile Picture
    fhtech 30 on at
    Re: DateTime fields are seen as numbers not dates

    Disregard last message.  It worked and I accepted the Solution.

     

    Thanks Alice!

  • fhtech Profile Picture
    fhtech 30 on at
    Re: DateTime fields are seen as numbers not dates

    Hi Alice,

     

    thanks for replying.  I tried your suggestion and am getting a different error now:

    The string was not recognized as a valid DateTime. There is an unknown word starting at index 0.

    Here is the function I used: 

    addDays('1900-01-01T00:00:00Z',sub(int(item()?['ContractorAssignDate']),2))
     
    Here is what I am seeing now:
    9-23-2019 11-18-01 AM.jpg
    Thanks, Reba
     
     

     

  • Verified answer
    v-alzhan-msft Profile Picture
    v-alzhan-msft on at
    Re: DateTime fields are seen as numbers not dates

    Hi @fhtech ,

     

    Please refer to link below to convert the string to date in flow:

    https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Excel-Online-Date/td-p/134200

     

    And the expression should be as below:

    addDays('1900-01-01T00:00:00Z',sub(int(item()?['TheDateColumnTitle']),2))

     

    Best regards,

    Alice       

     

    Community Support Team _ Alice Zhang
    If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

  • ScottShearer Profile Picture
    ScottShearer 25,228 Most Valuable Professional on at
    Re: DateTime fields are seen as numbers not dates

    @fhtech 

    The issue is that Excelstores dates differently than what Flow expects.

    Hrere is a link to a post that discusses this issues as well as a solution.

     

     

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