Good to hear it’s not just us then,
At the moment i’m advising people not to use the calendar to select dates… it seems far too flaky.
As for the other date issues are concerned there a number of things to check,
this is a list i’ve compiled …
Symptoms
A. Date prompts in infoview and Deski are displayed in American format.
B. When running a query a datetime error is generated:
Example with SQL server
“[Exception: DBD, [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]”
converting a Char data type to a DateTime data type
Resolution
CHECKLIST
-
Ensure that the universe is using an ODBC connection
-
Ensure stored procedures are using an ODBC connection
-
Set the ODBC connection to use British/English as the default language
-
Migration forced UK English has been applied in the designer module:
Tools>Options>Tick ‘migration forced’
Click the grey ‘English’ option > Unsupported Languages > Select “English
(United Kingdom)”
-
Force migration in Desktop Intelligence
-
Regional settings on the server and client machines are set to UK English
-
Object used in the prompt
In Designer edit the properties of the date object > Advanced Tab > Ensure
that the Database Format is left blank.
-
PRM file setting: User_Input_Date_Format should be set to dd/MM/yy or
dd/MM/yyyy
(The timestamp applied is not known to have an impact on the problem)
SQL Server example:
C:\Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise
11.5\win32_x86\ dataAccess\connectionServer\odbc\sqlsrv.prm
‘mm/dd/yyyy HH:m:s’
Change to
‘dd/MM/yyyy HH:m:s’
** You need to stop and restart all XI Servers after modifying the prm file.
Otherwise the changes will not take effect. **
- If all of the above fails - delete the user prefs folder in the registry for
the BO user account experiencing the problem
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Business Objects\Suite 11.5\default\BusinessObjects\ “username” user prefs
Log back into Business Objects and rerun the report.
Applying all of the above changes will in most cases resolve the problem when the database holds values in an American format and it is possible to use an ODBC connection.
If the problem persists an additional step would be to modify settings directly on the server that hosts the database.
!! This should only be performed with the permission of the Database Administrator !!
Change following keys in HKUSERS.default\control panel\International\iDate
change to match HKUSERS\S-1-5-21-85988526-949360888-199955091-500\control panel\International\iDate
Key US UK
iCountry 1 44
iDate 0 1
iFirstDayOfWeek 6 0
iMeasure 1 0
iNegCurr 0 1
iTime 0 1
iTLZero 0 1
Locale 00000409 00000809
sCountry United States United Kingdom
sCurrency $ £
sLanguage ENU ENG
sLongDate dddd, MMMM dd, yyyy dd MMMM yyyy
sShortDate M/d/yyyy dd/MM/yyyy
sTimeFormat h:mm:ss tt HH:mm:ss
MORE
When using ODBC connections the date format will be determined on the Business Objects server.
OLEDB connections will take the date format from the machine hosting the Database
WARNING
Before making any changes to files on the server please ensure that you have made backups of the relevent files and fully understand the consequences of the changes being made.
If you are unsure please contact your Business Objects administrator or contact your local support representative for further information.
Reporter Bloke 
(BOB member since 2004-05-20)
(BOB member since 2002-09-13)
(BOB member since 2006-03-08)
(BOB member since 2005-05-25)