Configuring Date Format in Reports

When creating a report, you may notice the data sometimes uses commas. The commas could make the date unusable in Excel, as Excel would use commas not as a delimiter for thousands, but as a separator for decimals.

What Causes The Issue?

This problem is caused because the locale of your Marin client account is different from that of your Excel. Here is an example situation:

  • Your locale in Marin is set to English US:
    • A comma (,) is used for 1000 separator, and a period (.) is used to separate the decimals such as this: 1,234.56
  • Your locale in Excel is set to France:
    • A comma (,) is used to separate the decimals, and a space ( ) is used for 1000 separator, such as this: 1 234,56

Below you can find a few examples of locale settings in the platform with examples:

Locale Example
Danish (Denmark) 1 234,56
English (United Kingdom) 1,234.56
English (United States) 1,234.56
Finnish (Finland) 1 234,56
French (Canada) 1 234,56
French (France) 1 234,56
German 1.234,56
Italian 1.234,56
Norwegian 1 234,56
Spanish  1.234,56
Swedish  1 234,56

How To Fix The Issue

You can fix this issue in either of the following ways:

  • Change your Marin client account locale to match your locale in Excel.
    1. In Marin, click the Settings button in the top-right.
    2. Under the Clients & Users tab and the Clients sub-tab, locate the specific client account you need to adjust and double-click it to open its settings in the Side Panel. 
    3. Under the Geographic section, you'll see the Locale field. Hover over this until the Edit button ('pencil' icon) appears, then click on this icon. 
    4. Locate the locale needed from the drop-down. You can use the search functionality to quickly narrow down your choices. 
    5. Click Save
  • Switch Excel settings on delimiters.

Note: There might be occasions where you have to run a report in a format that is different than the one defined in the Locale setting in your Marin client account. Please refer to the article Formatting Errors When Running Reports With Different Locale Setting for step-by-step instructions.

Written by Marketing @ Marin Software

Last published at: November 8th, 2023