Date Only format with BCS

Question

I have created an External Content Type through SharePoint Designer. One of the fields that I'm getting from my database is a DateTime column. In SharePoint, however, I want to format this as a Date only. At the moment it's coming through as

2011-05-06 00:00:00z

I want something like:

2011-05-06

Or ideally:

06-05-2011

It sounds really simple, but I can find little information on how to achieve this. Have I missed something really obvious? Is this achievable? I do not want to have to modify the database (that will take time and administration)

EDIT: the particular problem is a date column within the External Data Picker, and the External Content type is only being used for an External Data column.

Answer 1

It doesn't appear that this is possible at this time, which is annoying. Kudos for Roel for his tip on doing this for an External List.

Answer 2

There is an article in the DUET info on MSDN that shows you how to do this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg271157.aspx

I think you can do it as follows as well (since an external content type is still a content type; however I have not tested this): - Create your external list from the external content type - Go into the external lists you have created for your site in sharepoint designer - In the right hand corner you can see the views. Your external list should have a default view. Click on it and the file should open in sharepoint designer.

Look for a snippet like this:

<XmlDefinition>
            <View Name="{62A0ABCF-DF9D-45DD-985E-46ECDC9F5004}" DefaultView="TRUE" MobileView="TRUE" MobileDefaultView="TRUE" Type="HTML" DisplayName="SmartAppList" Url="/Lists/ghjghj/ReadList.aspx" Level="1" BaseViewID="1" ContentTypeID="0x" ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/generic.png">
                <Method Name="ReadList"/>
                <Query>
                    <OrderBy>
                        <FieldRef Name="Id"/>
                    </OrderBy>
                </Query>
                <ViewFields>
                    <FieldRef Name="Id" ListItemMenu="TRUE" LinkToItem="TRUE"/>
                    <FieldRef Name="Name"/>
                    <FieldRef Name="Description"/>
                    <FieldRef Name="ConfigurationXml"/>
                </ViewFields>
                <RowLimit Paged="TRUE">30</RowLimit>
                <Aggregations Value="Off"/>
                <Toolbar Type="Standard"/>
            </View>
        </XmlDefinition

>

• At the fieldref for your field you should be able to add the format attribute. This allows you to change the display of the date/time field.

Refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa543225.aspx for possible values.

Answer 3

From SharePoint designer:

List and Libraries -> Click on list -> Under Views tab -> Read List

Right click on the date field -> Edit formula

Replace:

$thisNode/@*[name()=current()/@Name]

With

substring-before($thisNode/@*[name()=current()/@Name], ' ')