Date importing as VString

Question

Hi Community,

Need help please I have to create pivot data in Monthly buckets for customer orders by request date & Order entry date.

both columns of data are importing as vstring fields, I tried changing in the select tool and this doesn't work

Example of the data would be 19/02/2021 I need this to come out in the MMM-YY format so I can pivot that as Feb-21 Demand.

Can anyone please advise the format / formula to do this please.

TIA,

Karl.

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binu_acs · Answer

@Karl_Spratt One way of dong this

Date_Time_0928.yxmd

Christina_H · Answer

Using the DateTime functions, you need to convert to dates and then format appropriately.  DateTime Functions | Alteryx Help

DateTimeFormat(DateTimeParse([Date],'%d/%m/%Y'),'%b-%y')+' Demand'

DataNath · Answer

@Karl_Spratt Alteryx works with dates in a YYYY-MM-DD format and so if you ever have a date field that follows a different pattern, you first need to parse this. You can either use the DateTime tool or DateTimeParse() function in one of the formula tools. Once you have the date in a correct format, you can then change it back into a string in whichever format you like.

Here you're first of all telling Alteryx that the incoming date is in a dd/mm/yyyy format, which is what the %d/%m/%Y part of the function signifies. After parsing it, the %b-%y represents the conversion into abbreviated month - 2 digit year:

If you're applying this to 2 date fields at once, it's worth using a Multi-Field Formula tool and ticking the 2 fields. Then in the expression itself, you'd just use [CurrentField] where I currently have [Input Date].

Mon-YY date format.yxmd