Excel changes the date values by itself

Hey everyone,

In one of my process I receive an excel file which includes date values in one column. The problem I face is my excel is English and theirs is not so when they write 10.3.2021 as a cell value and send the excel to the robot via mail its seen as 3/10/2021. I know its not related specifically to RPA but I believe alot of you may have faced the same problem. What I want to do is not format the date value as in MM/DD/YYYY to dd.mm.yyyy because the user may have sent me the format wrong from the start so it wont be to safe to make robot alter the cell values.

So my question basically: Is there a way to prevent Excel to format the cell values? I want to see the excel the way its been sent, I dont want excel to make any changes. If its been sent as 10.3.2021 or whatever I want it to stay that way.

Thank you very much.

Hi @jntrk
The issue with Excel dates is that Excel may auto-format dates at the time of entry. If the original user isn’t careful with what is entered, the data may still end up unexpected at your end (the original file itself having introduced the issue)

This detailed guide on dealing with date formats in Excel may be helpful to you and also the other team you’re working with.

Hi @jntrk
Check PreserveFormat property in while reading the excel in read range activity.
It might help.
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