Datetimezone conversion behaves inconsistently

[Krishanu]

Hi,
I have text column in this format  - 2021-07-20T19:01:10.8986983Z
As you can see this is in UTC .  In Power BI desktop when I mark the datatype of this column as datetime, its converted into my local time. 
Now, When I publish this in service , this gets converted into UTC+3 (incidentally - my client is also in UTC+3) , this behavior is strange as Power BI service should be in UTC - This I have validated if I create a seprate column using  datetime.localnow()  and in desktop it shows my local time and in service it shows UTC.

Is the behavior of the text column in pbi service a bug or I am missing something here?
Thanks for your help.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @Krishanu 

If you change it to a Text column, then use it will not change.

Likewise if you are not using the DateTime.LocalNow() it will keep the datetime column in the required format.

[Krishanu]

Thanks @GilbertQ   for the response.
1. But I didn't understand where from it's getting UTC+3 in pbi service?

2. Is this a bug or this is by design - can I depend on this feature to get the datetime in client's timezone?
3. If this is expected behavior , why datetime.localnow/datetimezone.localnow gives result in UTC?

If you can reproduce this at your side - what could be the possible explanation?

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Krishanu 

If your data is stored as text it will not change and keep what the value is stored as.

If you use datetime.localnow/datetimezone.localnow it will always use UTC because this is the time of all the Power BI Servers.