Introduction
Time is a crucial component in the world of automation. Whether you’re managing schedules, sending timely notifications, or organizing data, having control over how you format dates and times is essential. This is where Power Automate’s FormatDateTime function comes into play. In this blog post, we’ll explore the ins and outs of FormatDateTime and learn how to wield its power to streamline your workflow.
What is FormatDateTime?
FormatDateTime is a powerful function in Power Automate that enables you to transform date and time values into a wide range of formats. It’s incredibly versatile, allowing you to customize the output to match your specific needs. Whether you want to display dates in a user-friendly format, extract specific elements from a date, or simply convert time zones, FormatDateTime has you covered.
Basic Syntax
Before diving into examples and use cases, let’s take a look at the basic syntax of the FormatDateTime function:
formatDateTime('input', 'format_string')
- ‘input’: This is where you specify the date or time value that you want to format.
- ‘format_string’: This is where you define the desired output format using various format codes.
Format Codes
The power of FormatDateTime lies in its extensive list of format codes. Here are some of the most commonly used ones:
- ‘yyyy’: Year (e.g., 2023)
- ‘MM’: Month (e.g., 09 for September)
- ‘dd’: Day (e.g., 04 for the 4th day of the month)
- ‘HH’: Hour in 24-hour format (e.g., 15 for 3:00 PM)
- ‘mm’: Minutes (e.g., 30)
- ‘ss’: Seconds (e.g., 45)
- ‘zzz’: Time zone offset (e.g., +02:00)
- ‘ddd’: Day of the week (e.g., Wed for Wednesday)
- ‘MMMM’: Full month name (e.g., September)
- ‘hh’: Hour in 12-hour format (e.g., 03 for 3:00 AM)
- ‘tt’: AM/PM designator (e.g., PM)
Examples and Use Cases
1. Changing Date Format:
Let’s say you have a date in the format ‘yyyy-MM-dd’ (e.g., ‘2023-09-04’) and you want to display it as ‘dd/MM/yyyy’ (e.g., ’04/09/2023′). You can achieve this transformation with FormatDateTime like this:
formatDateTime('2023-09-04', 'dd/MM/yyyy')
2. Extracting Month:
If you need to extract the month from a date, you can use the ‘MM’ format code:
formatDateTime('2023-09-04', 'MM')
This would return ’09’.
3. Converting Time Zones:
Suppose you have a date and time in one time zone and need to convert it to another. FormatDateTime can handle this too:
formatDateTime('2023-09-04T15:30:00Z', 'yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss', 'Central Standard Time')
Here, we convert the UTC time to Central Standard Time.
4. Displaying Weekday:
To show the full name of the day of the week, you can use the ‘dddd’ format code:
formatDateTime('2023-09-04', 'dddd')
This would return ‘Sunday’.
5. Displaying Time with AM/PM Indicator and Time Zone
To display the time with AM/PM indicators and specify the time zone, you can use the ‘hh’, ‘mm’, ‘tt’, and ‘zzz’ format codes.
For example, if you have a date and time in UTC format (‘2023-09-04T15:30:00Z’) and you want to display it in 12-hour format with AM/PM indicators and the time zone offset, you can use the following FormatDateTime function:
formatDateTime('2023-09-04T15:30:00Z', 'hh:mm tt zzz', 'UTC')
This would return ’03:30 PM UTC’, indicating the time as 3:30 PM in Coordinated Universal Time.
By combining the appropriate format codes, you can customize the display of date and time values to meet your specific requirements. FormatDateTime provides the flexibility you need to present time-related information accurately and effectively in your Power Automate workflows.
Conclusion
Power Automate’s FormatDateTime function is an indispensable tool for manipulating date and time values within your workflows. Its flexibility and extensive list of format codes make it a go-to solution for a wide range of use cases. By mastering FormatDateTime, you can ensure that your automation processes handle time-related tasks with precision and elegance. So go ahead, explore its capabilities, and unlock the full potential of time in your workflows.
In this blog post, we explore the FormatDateTime function in Power Automate, which allows you to customize and transform date and time values. The function’s syntax and format codes are explained, providing the flexibility to display dates in different formats, extract specific elements, convert time zones, and more. We provide examples for changing date formats, extracting months, converting time zones, displaying weekdays, and showing time with AM/PM indicators and time zone offsets. By mastering FormatDateTime, you can enhance the accuracy and efficiency of your Power Automate workflows when working with time-related tasks.