Date formats in a Report sometimes mm/yy

[Riki_Armstrong]

How do I format the <<TODAY_>> field in my report template. As you can see the due dates in the report shows dd/mm/yyyy but the heading shows mm/dd/yyyy.

Also a user added a comment (shown in red) and his comment shows a date of entry in mm/dd/yyyy. In the app and in the google sheet it shows as dd/mm/yyyy.

To avoid confusion can I set dates to 8 May 2019 for example? How would this expression look for the report template?

[Aleksi]

Try to use a formula TEXT([YourDateColumn]).

[Riki_Armstrong]

In my report template I have

Two Week Look Ahead for <<_TODAY>>

It is this date that I need in dd/mm/yyyy or long format.

My follow up question was more as to why one column shows a different date format from another when both are pulled from my app?

Date due>> pulls through correctly as dd/mm/yyyy but
Follow up notes>> comes in with date of mm/dd/yyyy
Follow up notes is a virtual column calculated by:
[Note]&" : “&[Date added] in Appsheet
Changing this to [Note]&” : "& text([Date added]) yielded the same mm/dd result in the report.

[Aleksi]

What locale settings have you set in your table(s)?

[Riki_Armstrong]

All set to English (United Kingdom). In the app everything shows correctly, only the pdf report changes some dates around and others not.

[Aleksi]

@Phil Any thoughts about this?

[Phil]

When we format a date field contained in a table, was use the table’s Locale to determine how to format the date.

The date in the report header is not contained in a table, so we do not know the Locale. As a result, we use the default Locale which is English US. We should probably do something better, though I am not certain exactly what that would be.

1. Maybe we should guess the Locale based on one of the table Locales.
2. Maybe we should allow some way for you to tell us how you want the date formatted.
3. Maybe you should be able to specify a Locale for the report as a whole.

The only alternative at present is to hand construct the date value in the header if you want something other that an English US date format.

The same is true for decimal, price, and percent data values in the header. We use English US format. As a result the decimal separator is period.

[Riki_Armstrong]

How would I hand construct the date format? I have tried <<day(today())>> etc but I’m not coming right. Is there a link to report template help somewhere?

[Aleksi]

Try to do that with an expression…
CONCATENATE(
RIGHT(“0”&DAY(TODAY()),2),"/",
RIGHT(“0”&MONTH(TODAY()),2),"/",
YEAR(TODAY()))

[Riki_Armstrong]

Thanks this works great in my App but the Header of the Report template is not linked to the App (not inside the <<Start section) so needs “template language”

[LeventK · Accepted solution]

@Riki_Armstrong
Here is the template language

<<CONCATENATE(RIGHT(“0”&DAY(TODAY()),2),"/",RIGHT(“0”&MONTH(TODAY()),2),"/",YEAR(TODAY()))>>

As long as you specify between left & right double chevrons, you can specify/construct any AppFormula expression you like in a workflow template. In above expression you can replace TODAY() with any [DATE] column you like in your template:

<<CONCATENATE(RIGHT(“0”&DAY([Due Date]),2),"/",RIGHT(“0”&MONTH([Due Date]),2),"/",YEAR([Due Date]))>>

[Riki_Armstrong]

Thanks so much, that will help my template making immensely.