Portal contact dates captured without consistent format applied

[Gatwick]

Dates are getting written to CDS differently but they are entered on the same Contact form with the same format applied. 

The bad dates get rejected on import. The attached shows an example in entry sequence, as show in Excel date formatted column.

10/25/2020 12:00:00 AM           - Rejected

               05/08/1985 00:00        -  Accepted

8/27/1979 12:00:00AM              - Rejected

I have another issue with UK dd/mm/yyyy versus US mm/dd/yyyy formatting as the Environment is configured UK but I can look into that next!.

Also. If a date is keyed in without using the dropdown then everything resolves to 12/31/2019 e.g 2/3/2020, 15/12/2020.

Any hints on where to start to look please? Cheers Richard

[v-xida-msft]

HI @Gatwick ,

Could you please share a bit more about your issue?

Do you mean that the date value stored as different format in your Contacts Entity?

Further, do you create a Date time type field or Date only field in your Contact Entity?

Regarding the issue that you mentioned, I think this issue may be related to time zone. I have made a test on my side, and don't have the issue that you mentioned.

Actually, all date/time data is stored in the Common Data Service as a UTC value. The way the data is displayed determines if just the UTC value is used or if the value gets translated to the user’s local time.

If you created a Date only field in your Contacts Entity, but you set it to ‘Time Zone Independent’ or ‘User local’ rather than "Date Only" in your Entity, when storing date value into this Date only field, it would include timestamp will cause the date to appear differently for different users.

Please check and see if the following blog would help in your scenario:

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/working-with-time-zones-in-the-common-data-service/

So if you created a Date Only field for your Contacts Entity, please make sure you changed the "Behavior" option to "Date only" for the Date only field in your Contacts Entity:

Regards,

[tacklers2]

Hi Kris,

Thanks for the suggestions. 

The 'date only' Contact Birthdate is standard default. Looking again at the Excel export it reveals the field is populated in both date and text format. There is only one form revealed to users for input so I'm puzzled as to how this has happened.

Can you shed some light as to how I could check further please? (Next post has Excel picture)

Cheers, Richard

[tacklers2]

This shows the Birthdate field as revealed in Contacts export with column formatting to text. 

[tacklers2]

Correction. The Birthdate is set as date and time, not just date,  and the picker does not reveal the time.

Looking at the contents in both the Date and Text formatted field the time is shown as either 12:00:00 AM or 00:00. No problem.

From the documentation I'd checked the individual contacts, both are blank for personal Time Zone settings. 

Still puzzled why text and date contents?  

[Gatwick]

Hi Kris, 

I filtered a dataflow for paulmus(text date) and Dan.Gichev(data date) and the text date is rejected, even though it looks fine on the first panel. 

I wonder if I can use a function to reformat.

Cheers, R

[Gatwick]

Hi Kris, 

It seems that text dates in the field are acceptable on import.

The problem is the DD/MM/YYYY - MM/DD/YYYY formatting.

I missed this originally as all No.119 contact records with text dates were rejected.

They couldn't be converted as all No.119 user entered birthdates were greater than 12 for the DD, when seen as MM = invalid!

So I need to get to the bottom of US UK dates.

[Gatwick]

This Portal site setting is in place but is it correct?

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @Gatwick ,

Based on the Date time format site setting you set in your Portal, I think there is something wrong with it. On your side, you should configure a "DateTime/DateTimeFormat" Site Setting in your Portal as below:

The Value field set to following formula:

MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm

More details about accepted date/time format in your PowerApps Portal, please check the following article:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings#mmSp...

Date time Site Settings in PowerApps Portal as below:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/portals/configure/behavior-format-date-time-field

Regards,

[tacklers2]

Hi Kris,

Many thanks for the screen shot, now in place but dropdown still reveals MM/DD/yyyy and not DD/MM/yyyy.

I'll reset another tenant portal and try again.

Any ideas on the mixed field formatting, sometimes date number, sometimes text?

Cheers, richard