What is the Difference Between Date Parts and Date Values in Tableau? (2024)

FAQs

What is the Difference Between Date Parts and Date Values in Tableau? ›

Date parts break a date down into individual pieces. Date values in Tableau are the continuous version of your date field. Date values represent the date along a continuous timeline.

The difference essentially boils down to dateparts behaving like a dimension as opposed to a measure which is how datevalues behave. This means that dateparts behave like discrete categories on the view whereas datevalues are more like continuous numeric values.

The DATEPART Tableau Function is used to extract or return a portion of a date. To provide the date component, use the first arg. YEAR, MONTH, DAY, and other dates are accepted by this DatePart Tableau function.

DATEPART and DATENAME are discrete and respectively return an integer or a string from the specified date, at the specified level of accuracy ('day', 'week', 'month', 'year' etc.). DATETRUNC is continuous and truncates the date to the level of accuracy specified.

Let's start with the difference between DATEPART and DATETRUNC. DATEPART returns an INTEGER value; DATETRUNC returns a DATE.

DATENAME and DATEPART are SQL Server functions that return the same information but in a different format. The DATENAME function will return the character string-based date and time of a specified date whereas the DATEPART function will return an integer-based date and time of a specified date.

In most calendar systems, the date consists of three parts: the (numbered) day of the month, the month, and the (numbered) year. There may also be additional parts, such as the day of the week.

They both do very different things. One truncates a date to the precision specified (kind of like rounding, in a way) and the other just returns a particular part of a datetime. Note that here the field parameter needs to be a string value, not a name. The valid field names for date_part are the same as for extract.

What is the function of Datepart in Tableau? ›

The DATEPART() function extracts a specific part of a date, such as year, quarter, month, day, hour, minute, or second.

DATETRUNC () Function in Tableau

DATETRUNC function is used to truncate a specific date into the accuracy specified by the date part. E.g., DATETRUNC ('quarter', [Order Date], 'Sunday') -> which truncates the date field to the first day of each quarter, with Sunday being taken as the start of the week.

YEAR returns the same value as DATEPART (year, date). If date only contains a time part, the return value is 1900, the base year.

DATEADD (datepart, NumberToAdd, date) - Returns the DateTime, after adding specified NumberToAdd, to the datepart specified of the given date. DATEDIFF(datepart, startdate, enddate) - Returns the count of the specified datepart boundaries crossed between the specified startdate and enddate.

Summary. The Excel DATEVALUE function converts a date represented as a text string into a valid Excel date. For example, the formula =DATEVALUE("3/10/1975") returns a serial number (27463) in the Excel date system that represents March 10, 1975.

datepart : A string that specifies the date or time component you want to extract, such as 'year', 'month', 'day', 'hour', 'minute', 'second', etc. date_expression : A datetime or timestamp value from which you want to extract the specified date or time component.