SQL GetRows OData Date Filter

[Ajh]

I don't understand how to filter on datetime columns in MS Flow / Power Automate. This should be one of the easiest filters to apply... 

This page includes an example with pictures, but when replicated does not work:

WorkOrderCreatedTime gt addDays(utcnow('yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ'),-30)

Spam filter I think is triggering on my links sorry for the funky format:

 https://www.odata.org/documentation/odata-version-2-0/uri-conventions/ 

Note: One of the comments states that it should be surrounded in single quotes, but that also does not appear to work

This page states that the filter criteria for a date/datetime should be surrounded in single quotes and preceded by the word datetime, but this does not appear to work.

DateTime values must be delimited by single quotation marks and preceded by the word datetime, such as datetime'2010-01-25T02:13:40.1374695Z'.

Spam filter I think is triggering on my links sorry for the funky format:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dynamicsnav-2016/hh169248(v=nav.90) 

Doing year(X) and month(X) etc is not an acceptable solution as it will not work if querying data older than 1 calendar year. 

Here are screen shots of things I've tried that don't work (StormDate is my datetime column). Successful response is included at the bottom to demonstrate the format of the response when I leave this particular filter off.

• StormDate gt '2020-02-01T16:38:07.0000000Z'
• StormDate gt 2020-02-01T16:37:41.0000000Z
• StormDate gt '2020-12-12T11:11:11Z'
• StormDate gt '2020-01-01T00:00:00Z'
• StormDate gt '2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z'
• StormDate gt '2020-01-01T00:00:00.00Z'
• StormDate gt 2020-01-01T00:00:00.00Z
• StormDate gt datetime'2020-01-01T00:00:00.000Z'

They pretty much all end like this:

Here's a successful response where I leave the filter off:

[funkyman50]

I am using addMinutes rather than addDays but I still can't get this to resolve the way you did. Is your server on premise or in the cloud? Not that I think that's the issue here, since the error message is complaining about JSON syntax but I figured I should ask.

[Ajh]

Mine is on prem. I'm not sure if it's different for cloud v prem. One other thing I've seen that's goofy though is time zones. Maybe you've got a time zone thing with your filter? (I know it's specified in zulu with the Z, but I've seen the time stamp come back from get rows be labeled as zulu when it's in fact in local, or maybe it was vice versa, I can't remember, but I still don't have that issue resolved. I'm kicking that can down the road until DST changes again.)

[A8Tony]

I have tried just about every method I know, and many I didn't know, and still cannot get this to work.

The problem I have, as I'm sure many do, is that this is inconsistent. If the records are in Sharepoint you can merely type something like:

CreditDate gt ' startOfMonth(utcNow())' and it will return the right results.

If the data is held in SQL (on premise and accessed through the on premise data gateway) it seems that this is close to impossible.

I got excited when I saw this as it seemed to describe everything I needed, but unfortunately doesn't resolve my problem.

So I'm trying to filter based on a field called SpareDate1 (SQL holds as a datetime field) where the datetime held is less than today - 30 days.

For reference this works:

SpareDate1 eq 'formatDateTime(utcNow(),'dd/MM/yyyy')

But this doesn't:
SpareDate1 lt 'formatDateTime(utcNow(),'dd/MM/yyyy')

So I'm left scratching my head, and really not wanting to bring in all of the records, and then having to filter them within my flow.

HELP!!!

[RobElliott]

@A8Tony if you are doing date comparisons you should always use the yyyy-MM-dd format and make sure that both parts of the comparison are using it. So try that in your filter query.

Rob
Los Gallardos
If I've answered your question or solved your problem, please mark this question as answered. This helps others who have the same question find a solution quickly via the forum search. If you liked my response, please consider giving it a thumbs up. Thanks.

[A8Tony]

Hi @RobElliott thanks for the swift response.
I've tried that.

As an example, here is the data held in my SQL table:

It is SpareDate1 I am trying to filter on.

So, I've just tried

SpareDate1 lt (formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-dd')

SpareDate1 lt (formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy-MM-dd 00:00:00.000')

Neither of which have worked.

Right now, I see my only solution is to work on a data view which filters this data out before it even gets to my flow. The really frustrating thing is I'm sure I've done this before 🤔

[Ajh]

This works for me with sql on prem through on prem data gateway.

StormDate ge date(2020-01-01T00:00:00Z)

That is plain text that goes in the filter box. If you do StormDate ge '____' it treats the ___ as a string, and doesn't know it's a datetime, which is why that doesn't work. You wrap the ___ in date() which is just a plain string from the flow's point of view, but it's a keyword for the oData stuff to tell it that hey, don't treat ___ as a string or a number, treat it as a datetime.

To get 30 days of data, I delete the date out of the above but leave the rest. Then I click inside the parenthesis and add this as an expression in flow. This means that flow will evaluate this formula as an expression and pass the resulting string WITHIN the Odata stuff. This is where you'd have to put the format stuff if you need to do that still, but the rest of the box would stay the same.

addDays(utcNow(),-30)

 and so the final thing looks like this in the flow (note that the purple box is actually the whole adddays formula above, flow just hides some of it).

[PabloD]

How did you get this to work? I'm using the same and getting:

We cannot apply operator < to types Date and DateTime.
inner exception: We cannot apply operator < to types Date and DateTime.
Are you using SQL on-premise? (I am)

Thank you

[PabloD]

No! I'm getting that from Flow: 

We cannot apply operator < to types Date and DateTime.
inner exception: We cannot apply operator < to types Date and DateTime.
clientRequestId: e6ee30c3-84d4-46d0-94ed-34c4f0c03e7c

[PabloD]

If you don't mind, what type of field is StormData?

[PabloD]

I'll answer my own question... when I read "We cannot apply operator < to types Date and DateTime." I took it as "we cannot apply operator < to Date OR TO DateTime". Actually, the problem was that I was comparing a Date with a DateTime.

Changing 

SQL_DATE_FIELD le date(AddDays(utcnow(),-20)

to

date(SQL_DATE_FIELD) le date(AddDays(utcnow(),-20) 

fixed the issue

[Ajh]

Nice! Good catch! That was definitely not very clear in that error message, I read it same as you did just now, but maybe because I knew the struggle you were probably facing lol

Cheers Pablo!

[ohthreesixtyfiv]

If anyone stumbles into this, tries the solution, and still receive the invalid JSON error...

I have found that the following syntax works:

date(ColumnName) ge date(DateValueYouProvide)

Cheers!

[Ajh · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone, please consider voting on this 'idea' to fix the implementation of the ODATA spec for date and datetime filtering. I started a ticket with MS and they have told me that it is 'by design' and not on the roadmap to fix. If you would please vote there's a chance they may fix it.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Ideas/Get-rows-SQL-filter-ODATA-with-a-boolean-fi...

[JamieLivingston]

This fixed my issue - I wasn't using the date function with my first field. Thanks

[bobesponja]

For some reason I'm not able to use this solution unless I'm using ge instead of gt, and when I use it, the database just returns all the values it can without applying the filter at all.

date(LAST_MODIFIED_DATE) ge date(first(outputs('LastModifiedEntry')?['body/value'])?['LatestModification'])
date(LAST_MODIFIED_DATE) ge date(2023-08-24T20:28:11Z)

[bobesponja]

Decided to try this again to see if it can be solved. I should've specified that i'm using SQL on-prem though on-prem gateway, adn that LAST_MODIFIED_DATE is a datetime2 column.

If I use gt instead of ge, the connector returns no results UNLESS I wrap it in addHours(<datetime>, -10), but the values it returns are high enough that addHours(<datetime>, -1) should've covered them. Example:

Returns:

If I use -9, -8, -7, etc, it returns no results (haven't tested with lower values). Strangely enough, if you convert it to minutes, it allows you to get away with -599 or-598 instead of -600, but at -597 it refuses to budge for some reason. I'm guessing some number somewhere is going far back enough that it registers as yesterday, despite clearly being today in UTC. 

[Steve416]

@Ajh thank you for posting the solution, the initial link is dead now.

[TSzczota]

Yes. In my solution it is working ❤️

I set it:
Filter:
date(created_at) ge date(formatDateTime('2024-01-01', 'yyyy-MM-ddT00:00:00Z'))

[pp3]

Hello everyone,
I have a similar problem with the OData filter when retrieving an on prem SQL database via the data gateway.
Even after days of research and attempts with all syntax variants, the query fails or returns NULL values.

Do you have any ideas what else I could try?

I already tried these formats and thousands more:

'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss'

'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss.000'

'yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ssZ'

''yyyy-MM-dd'

'MM/dd/yyyy'

'dd/MM/yyyy'

Thank you in advance for your help!

Best regards
Pascal