HELP: The date format is altered from Excel to Outlook email in Power Automate

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Posted on by KKOW

Hello,

I have a flow that links excel to outlook in order to send email on a schedule.

The Flow looks for a "Y" in a specific column, and then generates a template email in outlook that contains dynamic content fields from the excel document.

When it comes to the date, although it appears correctly in excel, when the email is sent through Power Automate and appears in the outlook email message, the dates appear as a number like eg 45026.

The steps in the flow are pictured below - I would appreciate any advice you can share.

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Kaif_Siddique 2,108 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Use the below expression to convert numerical value to date:

addDays('1899-12-30',int(<<Your Date>>),'yyyy-MM-dd')

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KKOW 6 on at

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Hi Kaif,
Thank you for your advice.
Im a new user of Power Automate, so can I please clarify a couple of points,
- Where would I add that expression?
- In the expression is written “Your Date”. Do I customize that expression in some way or include “Your Date” exactly as it’s written?
Many Thanks!

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Chriddle 8,697 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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I think it's easier to set the DateTime format to ISO 8601 in the Excel action than to do this calculation.

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Kaif_Siddique 2,108 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Agree with @Chriddle on this point.

Or

- Where would I add that expression?

Date field which appear as a number in Update a row connector

- In the expression is written “Your Date”. Do I customize that expression in some way or include “Your Date” exactly as it’s written?

customize that expression - replace "Your Data" with input date

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KKOW 6 on at

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Hi Chriddle,

Based on my googling of my issue, i had tried to update to ISO 8601 in the Date/Time format in the second step of my flow "List Rows Present in a Table".
Unfortunately that didnt seem to work, and the date (e.g 10-Apr-23) still appeared as 45026 in the outlook message.

I then tried changing the date format in excel to US, and various combinations, but no matter the changes i made in excel, 45026 still appeared.
Any ideas what i may be doing wrong - or any formatting in excel which I should apply?

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Chriddle 8,697 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Have you checked the output of the List rows action and the format of the Excel column?

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