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Session Id : DZY8qFTE5qpfvJ5Pbj/j0e
Power Automate - Building Flows
Answered

Convert serial number to date format

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Posted on 19 Apr 2021 15:11:54 by 6

I have a flow that takes appointment dates from a spreadsheet and sends an sms appointment reminder to a user. At the moment it appears serial number format 44307 in the sms rather than date format dd/mm/yyyy can the flow convert this rather than having to edit the original spreadsheet? 

  • nmasmo Profile Picture
    91 on 03 Oct 2023 at 14:52:13
    Re: Convert serial number to date format

    Useful if you're working with Date only field.

  • Verified answer
    Pstork1 Profile Picture
    65,997 Most Valuable Professional on 19 Apr 2021 at 16:17:53
    Re: Convert serial number to date format

    The items('List_rows_present_in_a_table')['appmt_Date'] was my approximation of the field you are using.  If you hover over the AppmtDate field in your current email the tool tip will show you what it should be.

  • 83dons Profile Picture
    6 on 19 Apr 2021 at 15:48:27
    Re: Convert serial number to date format

    Something wrong in the wording 

    flow2.jpg

  • 83dons Profile Picture
    6 on 19 Apr 2021 at 15:37:20
    Re: Convert serial number to date format

    How do i do that given the setup above. Totally new to flows. The spreadsheet has two date fields which look OK and are in date format but flows must be reading them in as text. One date field is whole numbers the main one and the other has decimal places once you convert to text in excel. 

  • Pstork1 Profile Picture
    65,997 Most Valuable Professional on 19 Apr 2021 at 15:32:43
    Re: Convert serial number to date format

    Following up on @Paulie78 's formula, that will only work if the date is a date only field in Excel.  Serial dates often include decimal values to represent partial days (time).  Since Flow's INT() function can't handle decimal whole numbers I normally recommend using a more involved formula that will convert from decimal whole numbers as well as integers.   Yours should be something like this:

    addseconds('1899-12-30',int(formatnumber(mul(float(items('List_rows_present_in_a_table')['appmt_Date']),86400),'0’)))
    
    

     

  • 83dons Profile Picture
    6 on 19 Apr 2021 at 15:24:50
    Re: Convert serial number to date format

    Please see screenshot. It's the field Appmt_Date. 

    flow1.jpg

  • Paulie78 Profile Picture
    8,407 Super User 2025 Season 1 on 19 Apr 2021 at 15:15:40
    Re: Convert serial number to date format

    Something like this:

    addDays('1899-12-30', int(44307), 'dd-MM-yyyy')

    In an actual flow you would probably have something like item()['Date'] instead of 44037 for example. The dynamic date value from excel basically. I've specified the date formatting there also, which you might want to change.

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