Why does my date field show a one-year offset in Power BI Desktop but not in the service

Question

Why does my date field show a one-year offset in Power BI Desktop but not in the service?

I’m encountering an issue where a date field shows a one-year offset in Power BI Desktop but not in the Power BI Service. I need to understand why this happens and how to resolve it automatically.

score 0 · Answer 1 · 5 hours

The issue where a date field shows a one-year offset in Power BI Desktop but not in the Power BI Service could be caused by differences in regional settings or time zone handling between the two environments.

Here’s why this might happen and how to resolve it:

1. Regional Settings:

Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service can have different regional settings that affect how dates are interpreted, especially regarding date formats and time zones.
If Power BI Desktop is using a different regional setting (for example, a country with a different time zone) compared to Power BI Service, it might interpret the date differently.

Solution:

In Power BI Desktop: Go to File > Options and settings > Options > Regional Settings and ensure it matches the region and time zone of your Power BI Service settings.
In Power BI Service: Make sure the regional settings match the ones in Power BI Desktop by going to the settings of the dataset or report and adjusting the locale.

2. DateTime vs. Date Type:

If the field in Power BI contains both date and time (DateTime type), there could be a time zone conversion issue. Power BI might handle time zone offsets differently in Desktop and Service, especially if the field is being loaded from a source in UTC or another time zone.

Solution:

Ensure that the Date field in Power BI is set to a Date type and not DateTime if you do not need the time part.
If the date field includes time, try converting it into a Date type using Power Query, e.g., Date.From([YourDateField]), which will strip out the time and only keep the date.

3. Time Zone Differences:

Power BI Desktop might interpret the date based on your local machine’s time zone, while Power BI Service may use UTC or the time zone of the region where the service is hosted, causing a one-year offset due to daylight savings or time zone differences.

Solution:

If your data source contains UTC or time zone-specific dates, ensure that both Power BI Desktop and Service are using consistent time zone handling.
You can convert the date field to a specific time zone (e.g., using the DateTime.ToText() function in Power Query).

4. Data Source Differences:

The data source may return different formats or offsets when accessed from Power BI Desktop vs. Power BI Service. This could happen if the data source is affected by regional or local time zone settings.

Solution:

Verify the data in the source itself to ensure consistency between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service.
You might also need to explicitly adjust the data within Power Query to ensure it’s correctly interpreted.