Incorrect Date Parsing with 'Parse Dates' Tool/Macro

[AConcernedAnalyst]

Hi all,

I am in the process of converting some strings containing dates into date fields and I am not sure why some of the dates are being incorrectly converted. I know I can create a formula tool to parse out the dates, but I would really like to see WHY the Parse Date tool is not correctly converting strings to dates. Brings up the question if this is potentially affecting other workflows that use this tool. 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[Robin_McIntosh]

What does your DateTime tool look like?  You should be using yyyyMMdd.

[messi007]

@AConcernedAnalyst,

With date parse tool

mm => Minutes

MM => Month

So the new format will be yyyyMMdd

that's why you don't have the same result.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

[AConcernedAnalyst]

@messi007 

Weird because my tool shows that mm is month and MM is minute. As a result if I use yyyyMMdd, it converts the field into a time. I'm on 2019.4.

I have a few nulls in my field. Does that potentially cause issues with the Parse Dates tool? 

[messi007]

@AConcernedAnalyst,

Nope I don't think that nulls will affect the result.

Could you share the sample data not screen shot it will help to investigate.

Best regards,

[Robin_McIntosh]

What tool are you using?  This does not look familiar.  Is it an older version of Date Time?

[OllieClarke · Accepted solution]

Hey @AConcernedAnalyst 

What is this Parse Date tool you're using? It looks different to the DateTime tool which is a default Alteryx tool. If it's a macro which you've installed, then you might be able to right click it and open it to see what's going on inside.

I've tested your dates with the DateTime tool, and it does work as expected:

Hope that helps,

Ollie

[AConcernedAnalyst]

@Robin_McIntosh 

It's the Parse Dates macro. 

[AConcernedAnalyst]

@OllieClarke 

Yeah it's actually a macro that our team has used in the past investigating more. I can open up the macro and explore, but I don't think I'll be doing that since I generally actually use the DateTime tool. Not sure why this time I chose to go with the Parse Dates macro (been a long week and it's only Tuesday haha). 

Thank you all for your responses!