Mismatch between Local Time and Filter Date

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm currently trying to do some accelerated testing to figure out a date drop off issue with my report. In short, I'm changing my local time to Japan so I can be "tomorrow" and see the behavior of my report. I've changed my local time, region, and Power BI locale settings to Japan.

In the screenshot, the card is pulling from a NOW() function, which shows the report is indeed in the Japan timezone which is the 22nd. But as you can see in the filter, the report still thinks today is the 21st. I've reset the filter and it's still showing 21st when "include today" is checked.

I need the report filter to also think today is the 22nd for my testing to proceed. Does anyone know how I can fix this? This doesn't seem to make much sense at all.

[vicky_]

Are you checking the datetime in desktop or service? 
The docs note that the NOW function only returns the UTC time in PowerBI Service - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dax/now-function-dax. I.e it doesn't matter what region you set. To get around this, you'll need to build in a timezone offset to your calculations - there's several solutions such as this one: https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/Convert-UTC-to-client-time-zones/m-p/56337.

[Anonymous]

This is in Desktop which is why I'm confused

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous 

I did a simple test and it looks like the date/time filter in Power BI Desktop is based on the current UTC time and not the time zone set by the system.
In the test, I changed the system time zone to UTC + 12:00, as shown in the image, the system time and NOW() function returns the time UTC + 12:00 and the UTCNOW() function returns the current UTC time, when I set up the relative time filter in the visual filter pane, we can see that it is filtering based on the time of UTCNOW().

Best Regards,
Jarvis Tang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for looking into it so it seems that this is intended behavior... which I think would be understandable for Power BI Service but makes no sense for Power BI Desktop