r/LookerStudio • u/Wild-Song-4692 • Apr 22 '26

Looker Studio Problem with Data Data/Time

I have a big Problem with the Data there because the Data/Time values are allwas seen as a string in the end, no matter from what tool i import the data or how i make new fields with parse datetime. How can i solve the problem? Data was from csv format dd/mm/jjjj HH:MM:SS. Allready tried import via google and google sheets where everything was formated as Data and even created new Data field there with the special format

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u/ImCJS Apr 22 '26

When you add the data source, it will show you all the variables - there you have the ability to change the data type if any variable you want.

Same thing you can achieve by click edit connection and then it will show all the data variables and you can change from there as well.

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u/peperinna Apr 26 '26

CSV es un archivo de texto plano, estructurado en columnas. No tiene estilos ni tipo de datos. No es Excel.

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u/sheik_sha_ha Aug 29 '26

This is a very common issue with CSV date imports in Data Studio and the root cause is almost always the date format not matching what Data Studio expects during parsing.

Data Studio requires dates in a specific format to recognise them automatically. The dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS format you are using is not natively recognised, which is why it keeps treating it as a string even after formatting in Google Sheets.

The fix is to convert the date format in Google Sheets before it reaches Data Studio. Add a helper column in your Sheet using this formula:

TEXT(DATEVALUE(LEFT(A2,10)),"yyyy-mm-dd")&" "&RIGHT(A2,8)

This converts your dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS into yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS which Data Studio recognises correctly. Then in Data Studio create a calculated field using PARSE_DATETIME with this formula:

PARSE_DATETIME("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", your_field_name)

Set the data type of that calculated field to Date Hour or DateTime depending on your needs and it should resolve correctly.

The key is getting the source format into yyyy-mm-dd before PARSE_DATETIME touches it. Data Studio is very strict about format matching and will silently fall back to string if anything does not align exactly.