We have a report which contains some DATE_TIME values (timestamps), however, Excel does not recognize these as DATE fields. We go into FORMAT CELL in Excel, to change the format, but nothing happens. This is a challenge for us. Any ideas would be greatly appreicated. We need to keep the values in 1 Column, so we can't split the TIME into a separate column.

What is the format? Change it before it gets to Excel in a define.

Probably something like this, depending on it's format.

XDATE/MDYY = HDATE(BUSINESS_DATE, 'MDYY');

Hi Leo,
Which Excel output format are you specifying?
e.g. EXCEL, EXL2K, EXL07 etc.
That may have an effect.
Are you really still on WebFOCUS 7.6? A lot has been enhanced in terms of Excel output formats since then.
e.g.
Most translated and smart dates can be sent to Excel 2007/2010 as standard date values with format masks, enabling Excel to use them in functions, formulas, and sort sequences.
So - if your date format is something like YYMD, the above should apply.

Not sure though what 7.6 did!

Leo, Starting in 7.7 there is a SET command EXL2KTXTDATE

The EXL2KTXTDATE parameter allows you to specify that translated dates should be sent as date values with format masks instead of text values.

The syntax is:

SET EXL2KTXTDATE = {TEXT|VALUE}
where:

TEXT
Passes date values that contain text to Excel 2000 as formatted text. TEXT is the default value.

VALUE
Passes the types of translated date values that contain text and are supported Excel date formats to Excel 2000 as standard date values with text format masks applied.

It doesn't do you or me much good since we are still on 7.6.11 (hoping to be on 8 before the end of the year)

EXL2KTXTDATE only works for dates, not datetimes.

Then what is the purpose of EXL2KTXTDATE because right now on 7.6.11, without it, smart dates are interpreted as dates in EXCEL 2010 and 2003. I can send date that display as 08/24/2013 and, in Excel, change the format to mmm-yyyy and the display changes to Aug-2013. Seems to me that Excel is seeing the field as a date and not text.