Power Automate Formatting Cheat Sheet

Every flow eventually needs to format a date for an email subject, convert a UTC timestamp to the user’s time zone, or turn a number into a currency string. Power Automate has expressions for all of this, but the syntax isn’t intuitive and the error messages aren’t helpful.

Here’s a reference for the formatting expressions you’ll actually use.

Formatting Dates with formatDateTime

The basic syntax:

formatDateTime(triggerOutputs()?['body/createdon'], 'yyyy-MM-dd')

This outputs something like 2026-03-28.

Common Format Strings

Format String	Output Example	Notes
yyyy-MM-dd	2026-03-28	ISO date, good for file names
MM/dd/yyyy	03/28/2026	US date format
dd/MM/yyyy	28/03/2026	European format
MMMM dd, yyyy	March 28, 2026	Human-readable
MMM dd	Mar 28	Short month
yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm	2026-03-28 14:30	Date and 24-hour time
hh:mm tt	02:30 PM	12-hour time with AM/PM
dddd	Saturday	Day of week name
HH:mm:ss	14:30:00	Time only (24-hour)

Important: MM is month, mm is minutes. Mix these up and you’ll get wrong results with no error message.

Format Characters Quick Reference

• yyyy — 4-digit year
• yy — 2-digit year
• MM — 2-digit month (01-12)
• MMM — Abbreviated month (Jan, Feb)
• MMMM — Full month name (January, February)
• dd — 2-digit day (01-31)
• dddd — Full day name (Monday, Tuesday)
• HH — 24-hour hour (00-23)
• hh — 12-hour hour (01-12)
• mm — Minutes (00-59)
• ss — Seconds (00-59)
• tt — AM/PM

Converting Time Zones

Dataverse stores all dates in UTC. If your flow sends an email saying “Your meeting is at 2026-03-28T14:00:00Z,” the user gets confused because that’s not their local time.

Use convertTimeZone:

convertTimeZone(
    triggerOutputs()?['body/scheduledstart'],
    'UTC',
    'Eastern Standard Time'
)

To format the result at the same time, wrap it in formatDateTime:

formatDateTime(
    convertTimeZone(
        triggerOutputs()?['body/scheduledstart'],
        'UTC',
        'Eastern Standard Time'
    ),
    'MMMM dd, yyyy hh:mm tt'
)

Output: March 28, 2026 10:00 AM

Time Zone Names

Use the Windows time zone IDs. Common ones:

Time Zone	ID
US Eastern	Eastern Standard Time
US Central	Central Standard Time
US Pacific	Pacific Standard Time
UK	GMT Standard Time
Central Europe	Central European Standard Time
India	India Standard Time
Australia Eastern	AUS Eastern Standard Time

These IDs handle daylight saving time automatically — Eastern Standard Time correctly returns EDT during summer months.

Date Math: Adding and Subtracting

Add Days

addDays(utcNow(), 7)

Returns the date 7 days from now. Use negative numbers to go backward:

addDays(utcNow(), -30)

Add Hours, Minutes

addHours(utcNow(), 3)
addMinutes(utcNow(), 45)

Subtract Time with subtractFromTime

subtractFromTime(utcNow(), 2, 'Hour')
subtractFromTime(utcNow(), 30, 'Day')

Add Time with addToTime

addToTime(utcNow(), 1, 'Month')
addToTime(utcNow(), 1, 'Year')

Getting Start and End of Day

Start of today:

startOfDay(utcNow())

Start of the month:

startOfMonth(utcNow())

Formatting Numbers

formatNumber for Currency and Decimals

formatNumber(12345.6, 'C', 'en-US')

Output: $12,345.60

formatNumber(12345.6, 'C', 'de-DE')

Output: 12.345,60 €

Fixed Decimal Places

formatNumber(42.5, 'N2')

Output: 42.50

formatNumber(42.5, 'N0')

Output: 43 (rounded, no decimals)

Common Format Specifiers

Specifier	Example Input	Output	Meaning
C	1234.5	$1,234.50	Currency (locale-dependent)
N2	1234.5	1,234.50	Number with 2 decimal places
N0	1234.5	1,235	Number with no decimals
P	0.85	85.00%	Percentage
P0	0.85	85%	Percentage, no decimals

Padding Numbers with Leading Zeros

To turn 5 into 005:

formatNumber(5, 'D3')

Output: 005

This is useful for invoice numbers, ticket IDs, and similar sequential values.

Parsing Strings into Dates

If you receive a date as a string from an external system:

formatDateTime('2026-03-28', 'MMMM dd, yyyy')

Power Automate can usually parse ISO format strings directly. For non-standard formats, you may need to extract parts with substring() and rebuild the date.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

”InvalidTemplate” or “Unable to process template language expressions”

This almost always means your expression has a syntax error. Common causes:

• Missing closing parenthesis
• Using smart quotes (curly quotes) instead of straight quotes — don’t compose expressions in Word or Outlook
• A null value being passed to formatDateTime — wrap with a condition or use coalesce() first

Date Shows Wrong Time (Off by Several Hours)

You’re displaying a UTC timestamp without converting it. All Dataverse dates are UTC. Always use convertTimeZone() before displaying times to users.

MM vs mm Confusion

formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'yyyy-mm-dd') gives you 2026-30-28 (minutes instead of months). Use uppercase MM for months, lowercase mm for minutes.

formatNumber Returns an Error on Text Values

formatNumber requires an actual number, not a string that looks like a number. If your value comes from a text field or parsed JSON, convert it first:

formatNumber(float(body('Parse_JSON')?['amount']), 'C', 'en-US')

addDays Returns a Timestamp, Not Just a Date

addDays(utcNow(), 7) returns a full timestamp like 2026-04-04T14:30:00.0000000Z. If you just want the date portion, wrap it:

formatDateTime(addDays(utcNow(), 7), 'yyyy-MM-dd')

Locale-Specific Currency Formatting

formatNumber(1234, 'C') without a locale argument uses the flow’s default locale, which might not match what your users expect. Always pass the locale explicitly:

formatNumber(1234, 'C', 'en-US')    // $1,234.00
formatNumber(1234, 'C', 'en-GB')    // £1,234.00