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

Question

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 &rarr; returns null/empty

Using todate(totext(fv!item[index])) &rarr; 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.

shubhama926776 · Accepted Answer

You have to format data to date object manually

I added for both date and dateTime

a!map(
  date: a!localVariables(
    local!dateText: "2026-07-17",
    local!datePart: left(local!dateText, 10),
    local!temp: split(local!datePart, "-"),
    date(
      local!temp[1],
      /* year */
      local!temp[2],
      /* month */
      local!temp[3]/* day */
      
    )
  ),
  dateTime: a!localVariables(
    local!dateText: "2026-07-17 00:00:00",
    local!datePart: left(local!dateText, 10),
    local!temp: split(local!datePart, "-"),
    date(
      local!temp[1],
      /* year */
      local!temp[2],
      /* month */
      local!temp[3]/* day */
      
    )
  )
)

harshas2775 · Answer

You can refer the code below to convert date from a date stored as text - as long as you are always getting a consistent yyyy-mm-dd format from the excel.

If you have inconsistent formats then depending on format some adjustments will need to be made to retrieve the date. Hope it helps!

a!localVariables(
  local!dateText:"2026-07-11",
  local!temp:split(local!dateText,"-"),
  date(local!temp[1],local!temp[2],local!temp[3])
)

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