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croberts21
Responsive Resident
Responsive Resident

PBI and Postgresql, how to set blank date to TODAY()

We have a Postgresql database which Power BI can talk to. We have an Invoice table which has a posteddate field which is a data type of date. Sometimes this date is blank and the PBI ISBLANK() function does not work reliably with a blank date. I made a new column in the Invoice table:

Myposteddate = IF(ISBLANK(Invoice[posteddate])=TRUE,TODAY(),Invoice[posteddate)

 

When Invoice.posteddate was blank, sometimes today's date was inserted, sometimes it wasn't. So here's how I fixed it. I went to power query:

  1. For the posteddate column, I right clicked, chose Replace Values. 
  2. For "Value to find" I entered "null" (no quotes). For "Replace with" I entered "1/1/9999" (no quotes).
  3. Click out of Power Query and go back to the visual.
  4. Now I changed my custom column formula to: Myposteddate = IF(YEAR(Invoice[posteddate])=9999,TODAY(),Invoice[posteddate)
  5. If the posteddate is blank, it's changed to 1/1/9999 and I can later replace it with today's date. Remember that TODAY() is a date type, NOW() is a datetime type. We want a date. 

It works great and it works every time for all records! And year 9999 should never happen for quite a long time. 🙂

2 REPLIES 2
amitchandak
Super User
Super User

@croberts21 , Based on what I got

 

if the datatype is date or datetime in power bi then it should have null value in power query. if text it can have other values

 

replace null  with nay date and then change code manually  to

DateTime.Date(DateTime.LocalNow())

 

In the power query step

 

You can check for date of 1899/12/31 or 1900/01/01 also and replace it

"In the power query step You can check for date of 1899/12/31 or 1900/01/01 also and replace it"

 

That will work too.

 

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