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kamil2
Frequent Visitor

Different data time zones between R and Power Bi Desktop using the same source code in R

I work with GmailR package and Power Bi and I observe that my email data have different message "time" in RStudio (correct time UTC+1, same that in Gmail account) and Power Bi (wrong time, UTC+0) when I using same query code in both tools.

Screen:
stack_power_R_time_wtf.jpg

link:
https://ibb.co/TM12Bk1

My query code is based on gmailR, i get specific data in list's from gmail and transform to table (tibble object in R). Then I run code in PowerBi as data source.
I get time from message list, not fuction gm_data (because of cases when this function get null values). Below sample code (in R):

 

gmail_DK<- msgs_meta_DK %>% {
tibble(
date = map_chr(., "internalDate")
)

 



and then I change timestamp to normal data time. Sample code (in R):

 

 gmail_DK <- gmail_DK %>%
mutate(date = as.POSIXct(as.numeric(date) /1000, origin="1970-01-01"))

 

 


I checked regional settings in PowerBi Deskop and it is correct - UTC+1.
I'm in UTC+1 time zone, gmail account is for UTC+1 (this is customer service email, but as I know all customer agent's are too in UTC+1 time zone) and most of message are from and to UTC+1 users.

I can change this difference using PowerQuery or just add hour in my query code in R, but I'm curious why is this difference happen?

 

1 REPLY 1
lbendlin
Super User
Super User

It's not really wrong per se, it''s how Power BI is designed.  By default Power BI runs on UTC, and you as the developer can choose to let it do its thing (and let the report consumer's locale do the conversion) or - if you choose - to enforce a particular timezome.

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