Google Data Studio: How to join dates if they don't join automatically?

Question

I am trying to join Google analytics page views to a salesforce connected dataset of email campaigns via a blended data set.

As you can see from the screenshot below I have date fields in both cases, but I see now pairing key icon. I assume pairing happens automatically or not at all ?

My guess is that the date formats are different and that is why data studio can't pair them. I've tried lots of date fields from both sides and I never see this pairing key icon appear that I've seen in tutorial videos/online documentation.

Can I correct this by just setting up some kind of custom format function over one of the date fields ? Or is there likely something else wrong that is causing the join to not appear ?

Answer 1

If the fields you want to join on aren't the same format, you can create a Calculated Field. From the docs, emphasis mine:

You can create a calculated field in the data blending configuration. To do this, create or edit a blended data source, then:

1. In the data source that provides the fields to be used, in the calculation, click Add dimension or Add metric.
2. Click CREATE FIELD.
3. Type in the formula in the editor window, then click APPLY. Steps to create a calculated field in a blended data source.

Creating calculated fields on a blended data source can be convenient when configuring join keys if the columns in your data sources aren’t perfectly compatible (for example, differently formatted dates or mismatched capitalization). It can also be useful for reports based on reusable data sources as report editors don't need access to that data source and can create calculations on the blended data source instead.