Excel Date Reading Issue: Appian Interpreting "2026-07-17" as Mathematical Expression Instead of Date String

Hello,

I'm facing a challenging issue when reading dates from Excel files using readexcelsheetpaging(). The problem occurs when Excel cells contain dates in custom format that appear as values like "2026-07-17".

The Problem: When Appian reads these date values, it interprets 2026-07-17 as a mathematical expression (2026 - 07 - 17 = 2002) instead of treating it as a date string. This happens before I can apply todate() or text() functions.

Context:

• Excel cells contain dates with custom formatting (cannot be changed on Excel side)

• Dates appear as format like "2026-07-17" when read by Appian

• Need to convert these to proper Appian date values

Current Code:

a!localVariables(
  local!document: ri!document,
  local!sheetNumber: ri!sheetNumber,
  local!startIndex: ri!startIndex,
  
  local!tempResult: readexcelsheetpaging(
    excelDocument: local!document,
    sheetNumber: local!sheetNumber,
    pagingInfo: a!pagingInfo(
      startIndex: local!startIndex,
      batchSize: ri!batchSize
    ),
  ).data,
  
  local!result: a!forEach(
    items: remove(local!tempResult.values, 1),
    expression: a!forEach(
      items: fv!item,
      expression: if(fv!item = "NULL", null, fv!item)
    )
  ),
  
  a!forEach(
    items: local!result,
    expression: a!localVariables(
      local!compliance: rule!getComplianceByID(id: fv!item[12]),
      'type!{urn:com:appian:types:AD}AD_ENGAGEMENT'(
        id: null,
        fiscalYearEndDate: todate(totext(fv!item[11])),
        compliance: local!compliance,
        complianceDueDate: todate(fv!item[13]),
        inputDate: todate(fv!item[14]),
        reviewDate: todate(fv!item[15]),
        companyDeliveryDate: fv!item[18],
        electronicSubmissionDate: todate(fv!item[21]),
        receiptProcessingDate: fv!item[22],
        createdBy: "ADMIN",
        createdOn: now(),
        modifiedBy: "ADMIN",
        modifiedOn: now()
      )
    )
  )
)

What I've Tried:

• Using todate(fv!item[index]) directly → returns null/empty

• Using todate(totext(fv!item[index])) → still issues with mathematical interpretation

• Various combinations of text() and todate() functions

Expected Result: Convert Excel date values like "2026-07-17" to proper Appian date objects.

Question: How can I properly handle Excel dates in custom format to prevent Appian from interpreting them as mathematical expressions? Is there a way to force Appian to treat these values as strings before applying date conversion functions?

Any insights or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help.