Working with non-standard date fields

[Danbert]

I have 2 columns in my dataset - these columns are used to show the financial month and year period. Because of this they are not formatted in a friendly way for use in formulas so I have a need to transform the data.

Column 1 (Month) is in the format "<month_number>-<month_name>". This is based on our financial year, so May is month 1. So values show as, "01-May", "02-June", through to "12-April".

Column 2 (Year) shows the year, but in the format "18/19", "19/20", as the financial year straddles 2 years.

I need to standardise the data in these fields in so I can compare with other date fields that are in standard date format.

I know I can use a delimiter to split the Month column so it can simply show as Jan, Feb, Mar etc., but the battle is assigning the correct year to each month.

Based on year 18/19, the logic basically is that if the month is 8 (December) or lower, the year needs to return the lower value (i.e. 18). If the year is 9 (January) or higher, it needs to revert to the higher value (i.e. 19).

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Hi Danbert,

This problem is easier then it appears on first glance. The approach is to 1) create a date where the year is the first two digits of the Year and the first two digits of the month. This now converts May to Jan-2018, June to Feb-2018, ..., March to Nov-2018 and April to Dec-2018. Now 2) add four months to the date to get May-2018,Jun-2018, .., Mar-2019 and Apr-2019. The method is implemented as a custom column below.

Regards,

Mike

let
    Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="Table1"]}[Content],
    AddYear = Table.AddColumn(Source, "Date", each Date.AddMonths(#date(2000+Number.From(Text.Start([Year],2)),Number.From(Text.Start([Month],2)),1),4))
in
    AddYear

[Danbert]

Hi Mike

Many thanks for your reply.

I managed to get around the year issue by adding a custom column (I am using Power BI).  It will need editing as time goes by but it will suffice for now.

=if ([Month] = "01-May" or [Month] = "02-June" or [Month] = "03-July" or [Month] = "04-August" or [Month] = "05-September" or [Month] = "06-October" or [Month] = "07-November" or [Month] = "08-December") and [Year] = "18/19"
then 2018
else if ([Month] = "09-January" or [Month] = "10-February" or [Month] = "11-March" or [Month] = "12-April") and [Year] = "18/19"
then 2019
else if ([Month] = "01-May" or [Month] = "02-June" or [Month] = "03-July" or [Month] = "04-August" or [Month] = "05-September" or [Month] = "06-October" or [Month] = "07-November" or [Month] = "08-December") and [Year] = "19/20"
then 2019
else if ([Month] = "09-January" or [Month] = "10-February" or [Month] = "11-March" or [Month] = "12-April") and [Year] = "19/20"
then 2020
else if ([Month] = "01-May" or [Month] = "02-June" or [Month] = "03-July" or [Month] = "04-August" or [Month] = "05-September" or [Month] = "06-October" or [Month] = "07-November" or [Month] = "08-December") and [Year] = "20/21"
then 2020
else if ([Month] = "09-January" or [Month] = "10-February" or [Month] = "11-March" or [Month] = "12-April") and [Year] = "20/21"
then 2021
else if ([Month] = "01-May" or [Month] = "02-June" or [Month] = "03-July" or [Month] = "04-August" or [Month] = "05-September" or [Month] = "06-October" or [Month] = "07-November" or [Month] = "08-December") and [Year] = "21/22"
then 2021
else if ([Month] = "09-January" or [Month] = "10-February" or [Month] = "11-March" or [Month] = "12-April") and [Year] = "21/22"
then 2022
else 0

I have split the month field as mentioned so I now have a 'Standard Month' column (text formatted) with 'January, February, March etc...', and a 'Standard Year' column (date formatted) with '2019, 2020, 2021 etc...'

What I need to do now is combine those fields into a single date field, so I can compare with other date fields.  If the format has to include a day of the month then that's fine (I would just have the first day of each month).  It would be great if you could point me in the direction of how to do that?

[Danbert]

I created a further custom field (converting the Months to Numbers), merged the new field and the Year field together and converted to date format.  They showed up in the format 01/02/2019, 01/03/2019 etc, but perfect for my needs.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi Danbert,

I am confused. The formula below (which is from the code above) does what you are asking and does not require editing.

Regards,

Mike

Date.AddMonths(#date(2000+Number.From(Text.Start([Year],2)),Number.From(Text.Start([Month],2)),1),4)

[Danbert]

Mike, that worked perfectly, thank you so much.

Dan

[Danbert]

Hi Mike

Apologies, I'm still new to this and managed my own rudimentary solution to get me past a block.  Your initial post referenced an excel worksheet and I'm not clear on the syntax to amend that to match my situation in a query in Power BI.  I will try your amended suggestion also when I get a chance and will post back and mark as a solution if it works for me.

Thanks again.