utcNow is pulling the next day rather than day the current date.

[Herbertt]

Help Please!!

I have an automation that is supposed to run daily at 10:30 PM EST. It is supposed to pull all list entries created that day. When I test the flow it works fine. At 10:30 PM I get an email with the next day's date and no data info.

My data pull in Get Items is  -->>>    Date ge 'startOfDay(utcNow())'

My email subject line date is ---->  formatDateTime (addHours(utcNow(), -5),'MM.dd.yy')

Somehow utcNow is pulling the next day rather day the current date. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[trice602 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Herbertt ,

If you are running a flow at 10:30 PM eastern, UTCnow will always be tomorrow's date.  Since your flow is hard-coded for a scheduled run at 10:30PM, I recommend just subtracting one day from UTCnow to get the today's date.

[Herbertt]

Thanks. So use the below for my data pull?

Date eq 'startOfDay(addDays(utcNow(), -1)'

[trice602]

Hi @Herbertt ,

Yes, that should work.  Be sure to make sure the format matches your Date field in your SP List.  I have a couple similar processes where I just subtract a day because I know UTC is off by a day during that time.  Please let me know if this works for you.

[Herbertt]

Thank you so much! I'll let you know how it goes for tonight.

In my research all things were saying that utcNow=current date & time. Do you know what causes the date change, even though the time zone was specified in the reoccurrence section?

[Pstork1]

Subtracting a day will work, but that's not the exact issue.  Just as you subtract 5 hours to allow for the time zone when using UTCnow() in the formatdatetime you need to do the same thing when pulling the date.  Subtracting  day will work because it ends up the same way.  But if you tried to do the same thing kicking off a report at 6:00PM it would end up being a date of yesterday.  Its the timezone that is giving the issue, not that UTC is always tomorrow.  It depends on the current time.  At 10:30 PM in Eastern UTC will always be tomorrow.  At 6:00 PM Eastern it won't be.

[trice602]

Correct @Pstork1 , given that this is a hard-coded 10:30 PM EST scheduled run, subtracting a day is the easy path.  To your point, UTCnow does not always equal tomorrow.  What has worked for me is understanding my timezone and UTC difference and either code for it or convert my UTC to my desired timezone.

@Herbertt , the reason why your UTC doesn't get converted automatically in your flow is because your timezone conversion is specific to the recurrence, not directly related to the UTCnow variable.  Yes, let me know the outcome tomorrow!

[Pstork1]

UTCNow does equal the current Date & time.  But it returns it in UTC format which is the Greenwich Mean Timezone.  So at 10:30 PM in Eastern it is already 3:30 AM tomorrow in GMT timezone.  That is why its the wrong date.

[Pstork1]

@trice602 I understand that subtracting the day is an easy fix.  I'm just trying to make sure he understands the real underlying problem in addition to fixing the issue that he has so that next time he'll be able to fix it himself.

[Herbertt]

@Pstork1  @trice602 

What's your thought on the solution from the below link by @Mira_Ghaly ? The formatDateTime expression is confusing me. Is this just an alternate way to do what was proposed above?

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/How-can-I-edit-my-filter-query-to-only-get-the-it...

[trice602]

Hi @Herbertt ,

Yes, I think this is another alternative and both work.  For you, since it sounds like you work in Eastern time zone, just remember UTC is 5 hours ahead of you right now so be cognizant of that when coding.  I have found it easier for me to just use UTC time zones and not convert to my home time zone, but just a personal preference.

[Herbertt]

Totally makes sense! Thanks!

On the surface level I wish the below would work for my filter query. lol ... Ended up with an error..

Date eq '(utcNow(),-1)'

[Pstork1]

This isn't quite the same as what you are doing.  In her case its 15 days prior. Using Get Past Time with something other than Days might work.  But you could also use Convert From UTC.  The point is to adjust from UTC to your local time zone.  There are multiple ways to do it.

[Herbertt]

Date eq 'startOfDay(addDays(utcNow(), -1)' didn't work. I received a flow error.

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I truly appreciated everyone's time and efforts to help me out.

The below variations worked last night. I tried the "get past time" action too. Worked as well.

startOfDay (addDays(utcNow(), -1))

addDays(utcNow(),-1)