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Converting Date Values in Excel for Exporting Reports
Converting Date Values in Excel for Exporting Reports

This article walks you through converting date values in Excel to optimize the filter function of Excel.

Updated over a week ago

While Apricot .xls and .xlsx report exports do not allow for date filtering at this time, you can use this guide to enable this type of filtering.

Why do these date values need to be converted?

Excel allows filtering based on Month, Day, Year, etc. when a date value is formatted a certain way. Without this formatting, your options for filtering are extremely limited, as you can see in the following screen shot.

Converting exported date values to allow for filtering within Excel

Please follow the steps below to allow for date filtering within Excel.

  1. Select the first row from an empty column. This column will be populated with your date values once you've completed the steps below.

2. Click the "Formulas" tab.

3. Click "Date & Time" and then select "DATEVALUE".

4. Click the date value from the same row and then click "OK".

5. Select the cell that has been transformed by the formula and then click and drag the green square all that way down to the bottom row of the table.

6. With these values still selected right click and select "Format Cells"...

7. ...and then select "Date" and click OK.

8. Done - Date filters can now be applied as needed.

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