Loading dates as text like 43374 because of the data in the first row

[gmcc]

Power BI newbie,

I would appreciate your help. I am importing an excel file that has informational data in the first row, column headings on the second and data on the third on. Because of this, Power BI identifies the data in the column as text rather than a date (for example in the xls the data is 10/1/2018 but it gets imported as 43374. I have read many suggestions of converting the data using the Change Type with Locale and all the Locale settings but I keep getting the error: DataFormat.Error: We couldn't parse the input provided as a DateTime value.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

[gmcc]

Thank you! I guess I should have mentioned that I had removed the first row, and applied the 'Use first row as Headers' option but not in the correct order. One I did that and then converted using the 'Change Type with Locale' it worked like a charm. Thank you!

[TomMartens · Accepted solution]

Hey @gmcc ,

if I understand you do not need row one for the creation of the table.
In the Power Query Advanced Editor you can insert the Power Query function Table.Skip(...): Table.Skip - PowerQuery M | Microsoft Docs before the line that converts the first row into column headers.

Hopefully, this provides what you are looking for.

Regards,

Tom