Data export date format

[JesseS66]

Why did you change the date format in the csv exports to one that Excel doesn't interpret as a date?

[Anonymous]

Good luck getting an answer. It's been that way for quite a while (at least on the reports I get). I have to use some convoluted function to convert it to a date.

[Drew_D]

Thank you for your feedback @JesseS66 The date fields not being recognized is known issue with excel. Depending on the numeric values of the dates, excel will treat them as text strings. This is unfortunately not something we are able to resolve on our end. However, Excel does allow you to highlight the column, right click, choose "format cells", choose "date" and then select the date format that you would like them to appear in. One you click okay, the dates will be formatted to your liking. 

[JesseS66]

It actually did not work this way at all.  When I downloaded our data some months ago, the format of the date in the .csv file was recognized by Excel in the way that you are describing.  I just had to change the cell format to "date" and Excel converted it.  When I compare the recent download with the previous one, this new one is formatted differently.  For example, the year comes at the beginning of the string now.  Excel was not able to recognize the contents of  the field as a date when I changed the cell attribute, and it retained the properties of a text string.  I had to use string clipping functions to extract all the date/time information.