Christiaan B. on 29 Aug 2017 05:15:12
Typically date & time information is available in UTC (if not then put it to UTC at source), you just want it rendered in the users' locale/time zone at reporting time.
Adding an option to format datetimezone fields in the users' locale/time zone (based on the user account settings) would probably solve 90+% of requirements for rendering time zone information.
Currently MS does not provide for showing offset information (or local time zone) as you only have date/time format options, but in the query editor you can set type to datetimezone which show offset info so it's clearly available - just the rendering that lacks.
Not having this functionality is forcing people to resort to hacks like using DateTimeZone.AddZone () with hardcoded time offsets - not scalable where DST is involved. Current workarounds obviously only work as long as the viewer is in the designated time zone and does not scale across a global audience.
- Comments (36)
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
This would make my life soooo much easier.
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
Aggreed on this one. All my data is in UTC but when reporting, everything needs to be at local time
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
Yep, I wish I could do at least one of the following...
1. Take my date/time values stored in the data model (e.g. in UTC), and create a DAX measures to return the date/time in the Power BI Service user's local time zone. (And, another DAX measure to say what the user's local time zone is.)
2. Store date/time/timezone values in the data model ... and, have a way for the Power BI Service to convert those values, in reports, to the user's local time zone.
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
Native timezone handling of Daylight Savings Time during timezone conversion would be beneficial to me as well. I am charting purchases by hour, and the hour of the day obviously is not going to convert properly year-round with a simple offset against a date column that is stored in UTC. My target db is MySQL and I realize that MySQL does support timezone conversions IF the timezone table data has been loaded by the DBA. It has not in my case, and the quick workaround would have been for me to take care of this in PowerQuery.
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
There are workarounds when viewing In Power BI Desktop: https://blog.crossjoin.co.uk/2017/03/28/daylight-saving-time-and-time-zones-in-m/
But this does not work when report is published to Power BI service.
We have not found any techniques which work when published to service however - apart from explicitly handling DST and converting to a specific time zone.
For us - this is a major hindrance.
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
It's not just a new feature that's needed - the Power BI desktop client just doesn't seem able to handle dates properly when used in some time zones, e.g. Australian Eastern Standard Time. Essentially the same problem Mich I reported for October 2017 happened again in April 2018, as per:
https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/April-fools/m-p/391979
https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Issues/Issue-with-April-Ist-2018/idi-p/404711
https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Issue-with-filter-after-uploading-April-2018-data/m-p/399454
and so on.
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
very, very needed!
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
Would like to feel more confident with a native solution rather than having to apply custom functions in M
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
Yes, this is very needed! Thank you!
RE: Allow formatting datetimezone fields to user local timezone
Yes Please consider this as a critical priority.