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Dates and times in your underlying data sets can be represented in different ways. Some data sets clearly indicate that a particular field is a date or datetime. In these cases, Looker Studio creates Date or Date & Time fields in your data source to handle that information.
Sometimes, though, the data is ambiguous, making it difficult for Looker Studio to know how to handle it. For example:
20201210 could represent a number or currency value: $20,201,210.
12/10/2020 could represent Dec 10, 2020 or Oct 12, 2020
Can't convert to date
If you connect to data that contains ambiguous dates or times, you may see a message saying Looker Studio can't convert [field] to a date. To resolve this, do one of the following:
Change the underlying data
If you can edit the dataset, consider changing the format of your date field to a full year, month, and day format. You may also be able to set the field's data type to date or date and time. This is the recommended approach, especially if you'll be creating multiple data sources from this dataset.
Convert to date using a calculated field
To create a valid Date or Date & Time field from your original unrecognized field, create a new calculated field and use the PARSE_DATE or PARSE_DATETIME function. See the following examples, replacing field with the name of the original (unrecognized) field.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-09-04 UTC."],[],[],null,["# Convert Text and Numbers to Date and Date & Time\n\nDates and times in your underlying data sets can be represented in different ways. Some data sets clearly indicate that a particular field is a date or datetime. In these cases, Looker Studio creates Date or Date \\& Time fields in your data source to handle that information.\n\nSometimes, though, the data is ambiguous, making it difficult for Looker Studio to know how to handle it. For example:\n\n- `20201210` could represent a number or currency value: `$20,201,210`.\n- `12/10/2020` could represent `Dec 10, 2020` or `Oct 12, 2020`\n\nCan't convert to date\n---------------------\n\nIf you connect to data that contains ambiguous dates or times, you may see a message saying `Looker Studio can't convert [field] to a date`. To resolve this, do one of the following:\n\n### Change the underlying data\n\nIf you can edit the dataset, consider changing the format of your date field to a full year, month, and day format. You may also be able to set the field's data type to date or date and time. This is the recommended approach, especially if you'll be creating multiple data sources from this dataset.\n\n### Convert to date using a calculated field\n\nTo create a valid Date or Date \\& Time field from your original unrecognized field, create a new calculated field and use the [PARSE_DATE](/looker/docs/studio/parsedate) or [PARSE_DATETIME](/looker/docs/studio/parsedatetime) function. See the following examples, replacing `field` with the name of the original (unrecognized) field.\n\n#### Example formulas\n\nIf your `field` is originally a text field:\n\nIf includes the time:\n\nIf your `field` is originally a number:\n\nRelated resources\n-----------------\n\n- [About calculated fields](/looker/docs/studio/about-calculated-fields)"]]
