SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2405802 - Date Format Error While Importing Foundation Data or MDF Record

Symptom

We have a large number of import jobs scheduled to run daily that are of the type "Foundation Data Import".

The application error id would be accompanied by: "Effective start date cannot be null.,effectiveStartDate: 22/10/2014 is not a valid date value.","".

I suspect that something has changed so that dates  are now expected to be of a different format than the one we have used so far (dd/mm/yyyy).

(Nothing has changed in the way the data files, that come from different sources, are sent to Employee Central.)

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

Reproducing the Issue

  • Schedule Jobs
  • go to Monitor Job for error reports

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Cause

  • For any Foundation Object that is on MDF, the only date format that is accepted on import is MM/DD/YYYY.
  • MDF import does not currently support the logged in users locale, it will Always operate on US date format- This is expected behaviour.
  • For any Foundation Object that is not on MDF, it will respect the logged in user locales date format. 

Resolution

Make sure to use the US date format i.e.  MM/DD/YYYY

Please refer to: Guide: Implementing the Metadata Framework (MDF) Chapter: Using Delimit Functionality for MDF Entities

See Also

1935476 - Date format does not match selected Locale

Keywords

Date Format, User Locale, Effective start date, cannot be null, Effective start date cannot be null, effectiveStartDate, Import, Metadata Framework,MDF , KBA , LOD-SF-EC-FOO , Foundation Objects (Organisation, Pay and Job Structures) , Problem

Product

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Core 1611