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Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

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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)
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7ede533f c167-47a2-8d4a-69d1b9321a42 on 05 Jul 2020 23:45:47

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

Would really like to see this change. Our business is global and the time stamping for last refresh is confusing our users and is giving them an irritating user experience in an otherwise excellent product.

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c1e960d8 b81e-4644-a607-458558fd4bda on 05 Jul 2020 23:40:22

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

UNBELIEVABLE!
I had to add another column on Bi Desktop to convert the time to local time, and when I export to share the dashboard online to app.powerbi.com guess what happen?
The converted column is converted again to UTC!!!
THANKS A LOT MICROSOFT FOR DOING NOTHING!!

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5be227f8 4c58-4e14-9fd7-c28725664ba4 on 05 Jul 2020 23:39:57

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

i'm losing my hair over this. It should be standard. I have to know how much tickets from my system is new from today. I can't....
If i didn't have a daylight saving time in my timezone, i would only add an offset, but i have two differents offset depending on the time of the year... WHy the heck is the online published time always UTC? why can't ipick the timezone i want ???????
I use a 100% microsoft workflow, from my system, to logic apps, to cosmos db, to powerBI

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80563a9a 00a4-40b8-ac9c-b20f9d2ddf29 on 05 Jul 2020 23:39:02

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

I can't believe how truly difficult this has been to take time from an Azure DB and convert to local time. This really should be a simple thing--like set report time to use local time zone switch or something.

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2a487388 097e-4dcf-bc6f-8b2e2aba1ab8 on 05 Jul 2020 23:38:52

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

It is insane that this has not been adequately addressed by now.

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3f661fc5 2bcd-4d6d-8788-c855ac2eece0 on 05 Jul 2020 23:29:14

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

I think that Power BI should have a function to get the time zone of the current user who is using the Power BI service.

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2645af26 e6f4-48d7-84ac-84f356d682ef on 05 Jul 2020 23:15:41

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

This is extremely frustrating. As stated by Andy below, the functionality should exist to allows web server users to specify their timezone.

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e7adfb51 7736-407f-968f-d062591af1b8 on 05 Jul 2020 23:15:21

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

I'm sure I'm not the only person who is using Power BI plus Chromecasts to display dashboards. The lack of time zone options means that automating refresh of them requires a janky workaround, and nobody in my organisation but me can really use our dashboards as a result.
While displaying data is fine, our users need to interact with our data in Power BI to answer their own questions. This issue presents a practically insurmountable barrier to our end users, and I consider Power BI unfit for purpose while this issue remains.
Please either implement datetimetimezone in DAX as a data type, or preferably allow users of the web service to specify a time zone in which to operate.

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5f6eb53a 9f91-4985-b834-fa6d9a5ef002 on 05 Jul 2020 23:09:49

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

We are in UTC +10:30 time zone. So metrics where I have used Today () function suddenly change drastically after 10:30 am. Date/Time functions should follow local time zone.

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ee7ef1ec 8ac5-4cd2-b5a5-32df831cf89c on 05 Jul 2020 23:07:58

RE: Support for visualization of UTC timestamps

I am in US and after 6 PM today sales shows empty because Power BI service located in some server where it goes to next day. Need the solution ASAP