Forum Discussion

ManchevB's avatar
ManchevB
Helper II
5 months ago
Solved

Possible Localization issue

Hello everyone,

 

a colleague from Belgium and I are working on a Power BI report that uses Excel files stored on SharePoint. In one of the data sources, we have a table containing a Won/Lost date (dd/mm/yyyy) and an incremental value for opportunities.

The issue is that I can refresh the report without any problems—the numbers and dates appear in the correct format—whereas my colleague sees them differently, even though we are using the exact same report. Inside that table, there is a Change Locale step set to English (US) for both of us.

 

At first, we thought this was a formatting issue, but now we suspect it may be a localization problem on my colleague’s side.

 

We tried removing all “Change Type” steps for that column, and we also tried converting the format to text and then to a decimal number, but he still sees incorrect values while everything looks correct for me.

I would really appreciate any guidance on what direction to take next.

 

Here is what I see ( correct outlook )

 

 

 

Here what my Belgian colleague sees:

 

 

I tried multiple workaround but nothing would resolve and frankly haven't seen such a problem previously

 

Many thanks for your contribution.

 

B

 

 
Need Help

8 Replies

  • Stachu's avatar
    Stachu
    Community Champion
    5 months ago

    Hello

    Belgium uses comma as decimal separator, that may be causing the issue.

    If the column has numeric type in Excel it It should work out of the box though, do you do any parsing on that column? If yes, you can create parameter/query which would store the relevant separator, and use it in your parsing.

  • cengizhanarslan's avatar
    cengizhanarslan
    Super User
    5 months ago

    If your source is dd/mm/yyyy, don’t use English (US). Use English (United Kingdom-or other depending on your need) (or another dd/mm culture).

    • In Power Query: right-click the column → Change Type → Using Locale… → Type = Date, Locale = English (United Kingdom).

    Or hard-code it (most deterministic):

    = Table.TransformColumns(
    #"Previous Step",
    {{"Won/Lost Date", each Date.FromText(_, "en-GB"), type date}}
)

     

  • v-dineshya's avatar
    v-dineshya
    Community Support
    5 months ago

    Hi ManchevB ,

    Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

     

    Please try below workarounds.

     

    1.  Please enable below settings.

     

    File --> Options and Settings --> Options --> Regional Settings --> English (United States)

     

     

    2.   Please replace your type conversion with below explicit M code.

     

    #"Converted with Locale" =
    Table.TransformColumnTypes(
    PreviousStep,
    {{"Incremental Value", type number}},
    "en-US"
    )

     

    I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

     

    Regards,

    Dinesh

    • v-dineshya's avatar
      v-dineshya
      Community Support
      5 months ago

      Hi ManchevB ,

      We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

       

      Regards,

      Dinesh

      • ManchevB's avatar
        ManchevB
        Helper II
        5 months ago

        We tried as you recomended and still my colleague is seeing the wrong numbers. As soon as he opens the report and does a refresh, the format changes.. .