Office Online Ignoring Regional Date Settings for Sharepoint in US-based Organizations

Office Online Ignoring Regional Date Settings for SharePoint US-based Organizations: A Site-focused Guide

Microsoft SharePoint is a widely used platform for collaboration and document management by organizations worldwide. However, users from US-based organizations have reported an issue where Office Online does not respect regional date settings. This article will provide a detailed explanation of the issue and offer potential solutions for affected users.

Understanding the Issue

Despite setting local regional settings, users have observed that Office Online does not respect regional date settings when working with SharePoint. This issue primarily affects US-based organizations, where the date format is set to Month/Day/Year (MM/DD/YYYY). As a result, users may encounter difficulties and confusion when working with dates in their documents.

Key Concepts

• Office Online: A web-based version of Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
• SharePoint: A Microsoft web-based collaborative platform and document management system.
• Regional Date Settings: The format in which dates are displayed, based on the user's location.

Potential Solutions

While Microsoft has not yet provided an official solution to this issue, there are a few workarounds that users can try:

1. Modifying SharePoint Regional Settings

Changing the regional settings within SharePoint may help to resolve the issue. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the SharePoint Admin Center.
2. Click on "Settings" and then "Regional settings."
3. Select the desired regional format under "Locale and time format."
4. Click "Save" to apply the changes.

2. Using Custom Date Formatting

Users can apply custom date formatting within their documents to ensure that dates are displayed correctly. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the document in Office Online.
2. Select the cell or text containing the date.
3. Click the "Number Format" dropdown and choose "More Number Formats."
4. In the "Type" field, enter the desired date format using the following codes:
   DD - Day as a number without leading zeros
DDD - Day of the week as a three-letter abbreviation
MM - Month as a number without leading zeros
MMM - Month as a three-letter abbreviation
YYYY - Year as a four-digit number

5. Click "OK" to apply the custom date format.

Office Online's failure to respect regional date settings in SharePoint has affected US-based organizations. Although Microsoft has not yet provided an official solution, users can try modifying SharePoint regional settings or using custom date formatting as workarounds. We hope this article has provided a clear understanding of the issue and potential solutions for affected users.

References

• Change the date and time formats in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business
• Format numbers as dates or times in Excel