Date displaying differently after publication

[SBULL]

Hello

I have built a visual that uses a slicer. I want the date to be dd mmm yyyy as below, which it is in desktop when I have built the report.

For an unknown reason the slicer displays with the day in PBI browser, which is not desirable as it means the user can't actually see the date they are selecting.

Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can fix so that it displays the same as in the desktop?

Thanks in advance

[v-mdharahman]

Hi @SBULL,

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

It looks like you are facing discrepancy in visuals when you open the report in PowerBi Service. As @AmiraBedh already responded to your query, please go through the response and mark it as solution if it solves your query.

I would also take a moment to thank @AmiraBedh, for actively participating in the community forum and for the solutions you’ve been sharing in the community forum. Your contributions make a real difference.

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.
Community Support Team

If this post helps then please mark it as a solution, so that other members find it more quickly.

Thank you.

[v-mdharahman]

Hi @SBULL,

As we haven’t heard back from you, so just following up to our previous message. I'd like to confirm if you've successfully resolved this issue or if you need further help.

If yes, you are welcome to share your workaround and mark it as a solution so that other users can benefit as well. If you find a reply particularly helpful to you, you can also mark it as a solution.

If you still have any questions or need more support, please feel free to let us know. We are more than happy to continue to help you.
Thank you for your patience and look forward to hearing from you.

[v-mdharahman]

Hi @SBULL,

I wanted to check if you had the opportunity to review the information provided. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions. If my response has addressed your query, please accept it as a solution so that other community members can find it easily.

Thank you.

[v-mdharahman]

Hi @SBULL,

May I ask if you have resolved this issue? If so, please mark the helpful reply and accept it as the solution. This will be helpful for other community members who have similar problems to solve it faster.

Thank you.

[AmiraBedh · Accepted solution]

This is a known behavior in Power BI Service: date slicers (especially dropdown ones) render differently than in Power BI Desktop. Specifically:

- In Power BI Desktop, the date format honors your model format or your system locale (dd mmm yyyy like 26 Mar 2025).
- In Power BI Service, dropdown slicers sometimes override that and display a long date format, like Wednesday, March 26, 2025, especially if the column is a DateTime or uses system locale defaults.

You need to force the desired format (dd mmm yyyy) across both Desktop and Service:

In Power BI Desktop, go to PQ editor, select your date column (Alt Fuel Bill date) and add a new column:

Alt Fuel Bill date (Formatted) = Date.ToText([Alt Fuel Bill date], "dd MMM yyyy")

Then use the new column in your slicer instead of the original date.

If you want to use DAX, you can create a new calculated column:

Formatted Date = FORMAT('YourTable'[Alt Fuel Bill date], "dd MMM yyyy")