Date Formatting For Imported XL Files

Question

When importing an XL file with a column of dates, I am having formatting issues:  When trying to use the date column as the X axis in Graph Builder, the buiilder does not keep the dates in order.  The date format in the XL file is MM/DD/YYYY.  What can I do to have the dates in the X axis line up properly?

Steven_Moore · Answer

Thanks, Mark.  However, I want to see the dates themselves and not the seconds.  So far, I have found the easiest way to get what I want is to format the dates as "small dates" in XL BEFORE importing.

Mark_Bailey · Answer

Did JMP import the date information from Excel as character or numeric data? If it was imported as character data, then you must fix the data column first before using the data in an analysis or plot. Select the date column and then select Cols > Column Info... . Change the data type to Numeric. Change the modeling type to Continuous. Change the format from Best to Date > m/d/y. Click OK.

JMP will parse the character strings and convert them to the number of seconds since midnight January 1, 1904. The format determines how the parsing works. The format also determines how the values will be displayed in the data column and in reports (analysis, plot axes).