Deep within the Weeds: Dates in Dataverse
09 May 2025
In the Common Data Universe (Dataverse) there are features that came from painful experiences. I remember a number of these gaps that are now happily resolved with choices. One of these features includes all of the different options around the type of date fields that can be created in the Dataverse.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales (and other Microsoft Model Driven Apps) are built to be localized. This means that a person sitting in London and looking at the same database that their peer is looking at in Chicago can see the same data represented in their local area time zone. This is the power of personalized settings, and this is awesome in many situations; however, there are times when you do not want a date to be localized.
Critical in the Insurance industry
The ability to track a date on a claim based on the actual location and date and time at that location that a claim occurred and I want to view that information from anywhere in the world as the location specific information. If I am in London, I don't want that date and time represented in London date and time. I actually want to see the date and time in Chicago date and time, where the claim and incident occurred.
Partners have the ability to setup Date/Time fields in many different ways. Date Only, Date and Time, Time-Zone Independent ("Not Localized"), and more.
If you want to test your junior resources, ask them about the date and time zone settings in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and the Power Platform / Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement apps.
If they don't know the answer, the following information can be helpful.
"Date and time field behavior and format
The following table contains information about the date and time field behavior and format.
| Behavior | Format | Changing field’s behavior |
|---|---|---|
| User Local Note: This is the behavior of all date and time fields in the previous releases. - The field values are displayed in the current user’s local time. - In Web services (SDK), these values are returned using a common UTC time zone format. |
Date Only - or - Date and Time | In the user interface (UI), you can change certain out-of-the-box entity field’s behavior from the User Local to Date Only. For a list of entities and fields, see Changing the field behavior to Date Only on upgrade. You can change the custom entity field’s behavior from the User Local to Date Only or to Time-Zone Independent. Changing the field behavior affects the field values that are added or modified after the field behavior was changed. The existing field values remain in the database in the UTC time zone format. To change the behavior of the existing field values from UTC to Date Only, you may need a help of a developer to do it programmatically. More information: Convert behavior of existing date and time values in the database. Warning: Before changing the behavior of a date and time field, you should review all the dependencies of the field, such as business rules, workflows, calculated fields, or rollup fields, to ensure that there are no issues as a result of changing the behavior. After changing the behavior of a date and time field, you should open each business rule, workflow, calculated field, and rollup field dependent on the field that you changed, review the information, and save it, to ensure that the latest date and time field’s behavior and value are used. You can restrict modifying the field’s behavior, by setting the CanChangeDateTimeBehavior managed property to False. More information: Set managed property to change date and time behavior |
| Date Only - The concept of a time zone isn’t applicable to this behavior. The field values are displayed without the time zone conversion. - The time portion of the value is always 12:00AM. - The date portion of the value is stored and retrieved as specified in the UI and Web services (SDK). |
Date Only | The Date Only behavior can’t be changed to other behavior types, once it’s set. |
| Time-Zone Independent - The concept of a time zone isn’t applicable to this behavior. The field values are displayed without the time zone conversion. - The date and time values are stored and retrieved as specified in the UI and Web services (SDK). |
Date Only - or - Date and Time | The Time-Zone Independent behavior can’t be changed to other behavior types, once it’s set. |
" Retrieved from Manage date and time data type in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (on-premises) | Microsoft Learn
and for additional information on localization settings Set personal options in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (on-premises) | Microsoft Learn