Date properly formatted in Excel do not convert to alteryx date format

[EasyDDI]

I am trying to work on an Excel spreadsheet imported with correctly formatted dates. When the dataset is imported to Alteryx everything seems fine and dandy and I see the dates with the correct Alteryx ISO format 2020-10-26. But they are not, they are in fact strings and whatever I try to make sure they are in a date format in Alteryx is not working I tried datetimeparse([Original Date],'%m/%d/%y'), I tried todate(left([Original Date],4)+"-"+substring([Original Date],4,2)+"-"+Substring([Original Date],6,2)), I tried to use the DateTime tool, it remains a string. It starts to be aggravating since I cannot use a date which is a string in m

[EasyDDI]

I don't think I could change it, but I found a simple solution, I will write it down clearly later today in the thread. 

[atcodedog05]

Hi @EasyDDI 

If your are overwriting a column you cannot change the datatype. 

Only if you are creating a new column you can set it.

So the suggestion would be is your F1-Date is V_String create another column in Formula tool

F1-Date(A) of date datatype. Later rename, deselect the old one and handle it in select tool.

Hope this helps 🙂

[EasyDDI]

Thanks for all the help, I am pretty new to Alteryx and not very used to the way it works. I had an excel with a date formatting and when I was loading the excel into my alteryx flow, the date formatting was disappearing and all my dates were showing as string instead. 

I was trying to convert it back in the same column and whatever I was doing was ending up as a string and I could not load my data in my database since it did not have a date format.
After much back and forth I simply ended by using the Select tool and change the format of the fields. It worked:

All this aggravation for a very simple and elegant solution.

Thanks to all the guys that had a look into it. It put me on the right tracks.

[atcodedog05]

It should have auto detected as date. Strange

Glad to hear it worked 🙂

Do check is there any Null values after conversion just to be on a safer side