Sam Vanhoutte on 30 Jun 2015 19:51:50
We are keeping all of our time values in our data sources as UTC (as we consider this a best practice for our international customers).
However, when showing those dates in PowerBI reports, we’d love to get the option to visualize that date as a local timestamp, instead of the UTC timestamp.
I know this is not something that everyone needs as a default, but having the option to mark a field with datatype ‘utctimestamp’, for example would be a good solution.
- Comments (33)
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
This needs to get fixed ASAP. It makes relative date filters useless as well since they're off from the database's time. I shouldn't have to implement a complicated mess of DAX or M to have Power BI know what today () or now () means.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
Handle. Timezones. Better.
kthx
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
We also store all date/time values in UTC for consistency as our users are global. We currently use Tableau for dashboards/reports which too cannot handle the conversion to the timezone of the user viewing the data.
Having this functionality in PowerBI would be a major reason to switch.
Looking at other competitors it seems like a missing feature in all of them, but would be a major differentiator for customers with global platforms for whoever delivers the feature first.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
I too would like to see this problem solved. When I advocate Power BI for clients, I do not want to have to tell them that I cannot display a refresh date other than UTC. I'm fine with it but, a client sees this flaw as a reflection on the entire product. This is not good for those of us who push this product. This fact, in and of itself, should make this a priority item.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
I also don't understand why this can't just translate to local viewer timezone. The PowerBI desktop even has a timezone data type... you'd just you could just specify the offset for the data (so flag it with its UTC value) and then let the viewer adjust.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
Why does Power BI DAX not have a UTCNOW () function? This is so desperately needed.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
The objective here would be to have a single timezone (UTC) saved in your dataset, then present it on the dashboard as a local time based on the users PBI localtime setting - great idea!
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
There is a workaround, but if you're dealing with many clients across timezones, it can get really messy really fast. http://www.excelguru.ca/blog/2016/06/08/display-last-refreshed-date-in-power-bi/
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
My suggestion would be to add local timezone as a setting in the PowerBI service general settings. That way, you can publish a pbix using .LocalNow function and the service would look to your PBI setting to do the appropriate conversion.
RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps
anybody knows some workaround?