Data Type Date

[jeremywai]

The data input is in an Excel spreadsheet.  There are two columns with dates and formatted as yyyy-mm-dd on the spreadsheet.  In the Select tool configuration, only one of the two date columns have the Date type to select from.  Type Date is available for the Date Closed field.  Why is type Date is not available for the ETA field?  Thanks.

[pedrodrfaria]

Hi @jeremywai 

It is because the ETA field is a numeric data type (double), thus you cannot convert it to date. You would only be able to do this from String to Date, not from Double to Date.

Hope this was helpful.

Pedro.

[pedrodrfaria]

@jeremywai 

To give you more context:

String to Date:

Double to Date:

[jeremywai]

I understand what you are saying.  But as mentioned, both the ETA and the Date Closed columns are formatted as yyyy-mm-dd in the input Excel file.  So that should not be the reason.  I did some test and I noticed that the type Date was available for both the ETA and the Date Closed fields when I created a new workflow importing the exact same file.

Thanks.

[pedrodrfaria]

@jeremywai Are you able to provide the dataset? Or a sample?

[jeremywai]

Please see the screen shot below.  Thanks.

[pedrodrfaria]

Can you show how the dataset looks prior to the select tool screenshot you took?

Because it is in double format, so it cannot be in the proper date format as you are showing in your last screenshot.

[jeremywai]

This is what it looks like before the Select tool:

[SeanAdams]

hey @jeremywai 

Dates are stored in Alteryx as a long string of format YYYY-MM-DD - so any data that is in that format can be converted to a date.

You can check what format Alteryx thinks your data is in by looking at the "metadata" view in the results pane.

If Alteryx does not offer the option to change the data type to date using the select tool - you can always use a formula tool to do the conversion using the rich DateTime functions https://help.alteryx.com/current/designer/datetime-functions