Sam Vanhoutte on 30 Jun 2015 19:51:50
We are keeping all of our time values in our data sources as UTC (as we consider this a best practice for our international customers).
However, when showing those dates in PowerBI reports, we’d love to get the option to visualize that date as a local timestamp, instead of the UTC timestamp.
I know this is not something that everyone needs as a default, but having the option to mark a field with datatype ‘utctimestamp’, for example would be a good solution.
- Comments (46)
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
I'm sure I'm not the only person who is using Power BI plus Chromecasts to display dashboards. The lack of time zone options means that automating refresh of them requires a janky workaround, and nobody in my organisation but me can really use our dashboards as a result.
While displaying data is fine, our users need to interact with our data in Power BI to answer their own questions. This issue presents a practically insurmountable barrier to our end users, and I consider Power BI unfit for purpose while this issue remains.
Please either implement datetimetimezone in DAX as a data type, or preferably allow users of the web service to specify a time zone in which to operate.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
We are in UTC +10:30 time zone. So metrics where I have used Today () function suddenly change drastically after 10:30 am. Date/Time functions should follow local time zone.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
I am in US and after 6 PM today sales shows empty because Power BI service located in some server where it goes to next day. Need the solution ASAP
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
This needs to get fixed ASAP. It makes relative date filters useless as well since they're off from the database's time. I shouldn't have to implement a complicated mess of DAX or M to have Power BI know what today () or now () means.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
Handle. Timezones. Better.
kthx
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
We also store all date/time values in UTC for consistency as our users are global. We currently use Tableau for dashboards/reports which too cannot handle the conversion to the timezone of the user viewing the data.
Having this functionality in PowerBI would be a major reason to switch.
Looking at other competitors it seems like a missing feature in all of them, but would be a major differentiator for customers with global platforms for whoever delivers the feature first.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
I too would like to see this problem solved. When I advocate Power BI for clients, I do not want to have to tell them that I cannot display a refresh date other than UTC. I'm fine with it but, a client sees this flaw as a reflection on the entire product. This is not good for those of us who push this product. This fact, in and of itself, should make this a priority item.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
I also don't understand why this can't just translate to local viewer timezone. The PowerBI desktop even has a timezone data type... you'd just you could just specify the offset for the data (so flag it with its UTC value) and then let the viewer adjust.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
Why does Power BI DAX not have a UTCNOW () function? This is so desperately needed.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
The objective here would be to have a single timezone (UTC) saved in your dataset, then present it on the dashboard as a local time based on the users PBI localtime setting - great idea!